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Book >L53 



Charles Lister 



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CHARLES LISTER 

LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

WITH A MEMOIR BY HIS FATHER 

LORD RIBBLESDALE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 

597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 
1917 



136^0 



-y&v 3$ 



{All rights reserved) 



Prefatory Note 



I .4M indebted beyond words to the Vice-Provost and to 
Mrs. Warre Cornish for their sympathy, counsel, and active 
help. Further, I am glad and it seems to me befitting 
that this little book should have found its origin at Eton 
under the shadozv of College buildings. Eton, in the hour 
and circumstances of this great War, is signally the meeting- 
place of many memories of high promise. My thanks are 
due to Charles's ambassador, Sir Rennell Rodd, for his 
recollections — these seem to me to touch the routine of 
Chancery work and life with the true impressionism of the 
poet and the friend; — to the Master of Balliol and to Mr. 
Lindsay, tutor of that College ; to Mr. Cyril Bailey, to 
the Rev. H. T. Bowl by, to the Rev. Ronald Knox — all 
good friends of Charles's — for their valued assistance. 
I am also most grateful to those who not only wrote to 
him constantly but who kept his letters with affectionate 
care. 

Notes to letters in a collection of this kind are a matter 
of taste and opinion. As a reader of a good many books 
of this variety 1, personally , like notes : J mean notes 
which cross or even transgress the fi-onliers of explanation 



x Prefatory Note 

and which so venture to supplement or amplify the text. 
But to the best of our ability we> Mrs. Cornish and 1, 
have kept ourselves in control, and 1 hope that there is 
little in the way either of head or foot-notes which can be 
considered diffuse or irrelevant. 

Charles always dated his letters, and, mindful of Dr. 
Johnson s dictum that Chronology is the eye of History, we 
have done our best to present them in their proper order. 

R. 



Contents 



rAnc 
PREFATORY NOTB . . .IX 

MEMOIR ....... i 

I 

LETTERS 

I. LETTERS. JULY I909 TO MAY [911, 1- ROM (.BRMANV 

AND ELSEWHERE ... 21 



34 

58 



II. HUMAN LETTERS 

III. INDIAN LETTERS .... 

IV. PRE-WAR LETTERS FROM CONSTANTINOPLE . S3 
\. LETTERS FROM CONSTANTINO!'!.! .112 

\I. WITH THE MIDDLESEX YEOMANRY . 1 30 

VII. LETTERS FROM s.s. FRANCON/A, WITH HEAP- 
QUARTERS STAF1 . . .141 

VIII. WITH THE HOOD UATTALIOX AT PORT SAID . 1 52 

IX. LETTERS FROM THE AGEAN . [58 

11 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

X. LANDING OF THE HOOD BATTALION ON THE 

GALLIPOLI PENINSULA .... l66 

XL CONSTANTINOPLE DURING JULY AND AUGUST 

1914 . .... 170 

XII. WITH THE DARDANELLES EXPEDITION . . 1 78 



II 

RECOLLECTIONS 

ETON, I9OO-5. BY MRS. WARRE CORNISH . . . 23 1 

ETON AND BALLIOL, 1905-6. BY REV. RONALD KNOX 237 

BALLIOL, I906-IO. BY CYRIL BAILEY . . . 244 

IN MEMORIAM 

CAPTAIN THE HON. THOMAS LISTER, D.S.O., IOTH HUSSARS 25 I 

TO C. A. L. . . . . . . . 253 

INDEX . . . . . . . 254 



List of Illustrations 

CHARLES LISTER. GISBURNE, AUGUST 1899. BY 

J. S. SARGENT, R.A. . . . Frontispiece 

When Mr. Sargent was paying a visit at Gisburne he 
was impressed by a fidelity to type conspicuous in this 
mid-seventeenth century portrait and the Charles Lister 
of 1899. This accounts for the background of his 
drawing. 



MASTER THOMAS LISTER AND HIS PONY. 
DOBSON .... 



BY 



To face /. 1 



This picture, according to family tradition and a circa 1798 
list of the pictures at Gisburne, is the portrait of Master 
Thomas Lister in 1644, whose father had fallen in the 
service of Parliament at the very outset of the Troubles. 

CHARLES LISTER ON JOEY. Circa 1 895-6 . „ 6 

GISBURNE PARK. FROM A WATER COLOUR BY 

THE HON. BEATRIX LISTER . . „ 145 

CHARLES LISTER. ETON, circa 1903-4 „ 232 



I.: 



Charles Lister— Memoir 



MEMOIR 

CHARLES Lister was born in Grosvenor Square on October 26, 
18S7. Dr. Roberts, of Manchester Street — a great friend of the 
family's — brought him into the world and looked after the 
childish ailments of his earlier years. He often declared that 
he was an unusual and most clever little boy, and devoted 
extra meditation to the lengthy prescriptions of the old- 
fashioned reassuring sort which he devised for Charles. I 
cannot remember him not able to talk distinctly, and he 
assimilated very quickly long words, which told with excel- 
lent effect in the lingua franca of the nursery and school- 
room. He liked sonorous and eccentric words — this taste he 
may have got from me — and from the first pronounced them 
with clearness ; this knack he certainly got from his mother, 
who had an excellent gift of purity and poise of enunciation. 
Mr. Gladstone, who paid us a visit at Ascot in 1893 or 1894, 
at the time I had charge of the Buckhounds, was much pleased 
at this accomplishment of Charles's. " Ornithorhynchus " was, 
on this occasion, the particular word which elicited approval ; 
Charles was showing Mr. Gladstone a natural history book with 
fine coloured plates, and explaining the habits of the more 
obscure animals. 1 These they discussed at large together, and 

1 He had, from very early days, considerable facility for drawing, and 
before he went to Eton had filled two or three scrap-books with bold, 
strong-coloured water colours on foolscap paper of the larger and more 
ferocious fauna. His elder brother also drew easily, but relied chiefly 
upon the comic incidents of the hunting-field, whereas Charles's pencil 
was usually inspired by Indian jungles and African plains. 

Both boys when so minded got fun and action into their drawings and 
were quick and handy with colours and brushes. 

B I 



Charles Lister 

they became quite friends. On Mr. Gladstone's departure his 
mother asked Charles how they had got on. He replied, " He 
seems to be a clever man." This taste for words and for the 
collection of pretentious words did not last long. Now and 
then he might employ one with success, but his letters, and I 
think anything he wrote later on, are in good sterling English 
and free from elaborateness. They go straight up to and hit 
off the meaning. A good example of this I shall refer to 
presently. At the time it was written the back premises of 
the stable-yard at Gisburne were occupied by a polity of well- 
bred rabbits, guinea-pigs, and mice of varied colours and sorts. 
These were administered as a working Utopia and subject 
to all kinds of strictly defined eugenic and dietary by-laws 
and regulations. They were very tame, and Charles certainly 
appeared to have a sort of Androcles effect upon any wilder 
member of the community, but he soon got tired of them. 
The mice were, at heart, Bohemians, and were always escaping. 
The rabbits proved heedless of well-ordained marriage laws. 
As to the guinea-pigs, Charles himself on one occasion said to 
Lady Ulrica Duncombe — a close friend of his at this time — 
that although they were nice little fellows they exhibited 
traces of the worst human characteristics — dirt, greed, and 
cowardice. The letter I have just spoken of was written to 
my agent, Mr. Charles Starkie, who has preserved it all these 
years, as at the time he was impressed by its thoroughness and 
clearness. 1 

As far as I recollect he wrote pretty regularly to his mother 
and to me during his early and later schooldays, but seldom 

1 Writing from school at Rottingdean in 1896, he says : " I did 
not quite understand your statement of the number of Flemish Giants. 
I am glad you have sent two to Mrs. Cayley. Don't call them 
Belgian hares when you are talking about them to people who seem 
likely to buy." Then follow some minute instructions as to the feeding 
of " the young Flemishers " and as to " keeping down the price of food." 
He concludes by urging Mr. Starkie to keep a close eye on Tommy, a 
farm boy attached to Charles's special service. Tommy — a poultry pro- 
ficient — was not fervent in business and reckoned naught of guinea-pigs. 
The Flemish Giants were a new " line." What happened in Belgium in 
August 19 14 gives this letter a de I'epoque flavour. — R. 

2 



Memoir 

at any length, and on facts, not thoughts. Every now and then 
he described the greater occasions of private school-life at 
Mr. Stanford's at Rottingdean — a cricket match l or a concert. 
I remember one when he saw the local harriers casting them- 
selves on the neighbouring downs as good as could be. In the 
same way I remember with pleasure two or three of his holiday 
letters : for instance, the novel experience of a spring hunting 
day with the New Forest hounds, which terminated in an 
emerald bog and the green fracture of his left arm ; or it 
might be a day's shooting away from home, the methods of 
the keepers and the retrievers, the performances of the guns, 
and the quality of the luncheon. But I do not think he ever 
wrote to us at any great length from Eton. 

An old Eton Cloisters friend shall describe him for me in his 
Eton days. She writes : " Let me give you a pen-and-ink 
portrait of Charles at this time. He was seventeen. His figure 
was tall and slender. The head, which may be described as 
pear-shaped, was framed by closely curling hair. The com- 
plexion was uniform and pale, the features delicate. The eyes, 
which were blue, were both frank and observant — the frank- 
ness was for the person he spoke to, the observation was turned 
outward ; when speaking his eyebrows went up. His chief 
distinction among the scholarly band of his friends was to be 
totally free from self-consciousness. The priggishness which 
often accompanies a schoolboy's first approach to civilization 
was entirely absent. From the first he was the embodi- 
ment of comradeship in whatever society he found himself. 
The way men lived filled him with curiosity. Like the Celt 
of old, who awaited at the cross-roads the passers-by to compel 

1 Charles wrote fully to his mother about the St. Aubyn (Rotting- 
dean) cricket matches, explaining such terms as leg-byes, caught and 
bowled, stumped, and so on, rather than dwelling upon the mere 
incidents of the game. He and I became — later on — staunch lookers-on 
at first-class cricket, and he was anxious that his mother should share 
our leisured joys. Alas ! a willing but inattentive disciple, she made no 
progress in appreciating cricket values, and one day, at the Oval, at 
once pleased and displeased her instructor by asking whether the 
bowler made the runs. — R. 



Charles Lister 

them to tell him something new, so Charles interrogated his 
companions." 

One thing I may here note about the very early years : 
an almost Red Indian-like acquiescence in things as they 
came. His mother declared with joy that his mind was so 
superior to ours that he did not notice whether the water 
in his bath was hot or cold, or the weather pleasant or dis- 
agreeable ; certainly he never minded or deemed such things 
worthy of comment. In the same way with the various ail- 
ments of childhood and boyhood, of which he had his share, 
he never complained — almost as a baby " Soon be better " 
was an invariable formula — and it was almost impossible to 
get at where and how he felt pain and discomfort. This 
high inborn quality of refusing to be disquieted by any 
physical adversity or discouragement endured to the end. By 
way of illustration let me quote this passage, from a letter to 
Colonel Freyberg, dated July 30, 1916, from France ; it appears 
in full later on : 

" I think we began to shape ourselves into real Hoods the 
day that Lister — his wounds hardly healed — returned joyously 
to that sun-baked camp with its twin plagues of flies and 
dysentery, and declared that everything was very jolly and 
that this sort of picnic was one of life's richest slices." 

In these very early days Charles was either unaware of, or 
unmindful of, fear. Probably the latter : everybody is aware 
of Fear ; its effect, and the degree and nature of its per- 
ception is temperamental. He got this gift of courage from 
his mother, who for herself was never afraid — later on in the 
larger occasions of war, I believe that Charles's indifference 
to risks was recognized and borne witness to by brave men 
who were his fighting comrades in the Gallipoli operations. 

Charles attached very little importance to honours, or 
to the world's tokens of success, yet I often wish he could 
have seen the wording of General Sir I. Hamilton's Honours 
dispatch of October 5, 191 5, in which he recommends him for 
a decoration. 1 

1 Vide page 227. 

:4 



Memoir 

Here I avow myself in some perplexity as but a prentice 
hand at memoir writing. Is it or is it not a good thing to say 
something of the outdoor amusements and the indoor tastes of 
one's subject ? That Sir Robert Walpole opened a letter from 
his keeper or his huntsman before he even looked at his official 
correspondence ; that Mr. Gladstone was an eager and catholic 
reader of novels, are — for me — comfortable reflections. So, 
thus emboldened, I shall now examine Charles as a rider and 
as a reader. 

Charles picked up riding quickly. From the first he had 
excellent hands, but never acquired the balanced ease and 
elegance of his brother Tommy's seat on a horse. This seat and 
its look — highly commended to Sancho Panza by Don Quixote 
— largely depend on long thin legs, and his brother had the 
pull over him in this respect. 

His first pony was a roan, with black points and a tan 
muzzle. I bought him at Norton Conyers of Sir R. Graham, 
his own boys having grown out of him. A good if rather lazy 
hack, Joey had no pony tricks, and, though a hearty feeder, 
never seemed to get over-fresh. His record as a hunter 
is insignificant and without merit. Joey could and would 
climb up and down a bank, but cared little or nothing 
about hounds and jumped with extreme reluctance. Still, 
he was a character and a favourite. The photographs of him 
and Charles are very like both of them at the time. His 
first real hunter was by Escamillo, and came from Mr. James 
Darrell of Ayton, a great ally of the family's. This was a 
very good 15.2 horse, narrow, with fine shoulders and several 
crosses of East Riding blood. 

The knack of sitting properly over fences was not acquired 
without some discouragement and even tribulation. This 
accomplishment seldom matures all at once with boys. But 
Escamillo stood away and really delivered himself over his 
fences, so he taught Charles the real thing. They used to 
enjoy themselves very much together with our two packs of 
harriers, the Pendle Forest and the Craven. The country 
is all grass or fell, plough we don't know by sight, the few 

5 



Charles Lister 

gates seldom open amiably, and most of the fences appear 
to have been made to jump. 

After that he had a charming horse called Whirlygig. 
I saw this bay horse going in front during a long hunt late 
in the season with the Cottesmore, and I bought him the same 
afternoon of my friend and brother officer of Rifle Brigade 
days at Gibraltar, Colonel Dawson of Launde, who was riding 
him with evident confidence and security. On this horse 
Charles jumped two or three really high fell walls. He always 
liked high places. Whilst posted as attache at Rome he 
hunted regularly with both packs, deer and fox, and on my 
arrival there I found that he had earned and sustained quite 
a reputation for performances over the singularly upright and 
uninviting timber of the Campagna. Slow paces and the 
minuet airs and graces of manege riding he never practised, 
and he never cared to make a horse bend or show him- 
self. As a little boy he liked to gallop his ponies along, and 
allowed no difference to exist between macadam and the 
springiest old turf. His mother shared this preference for 
speed. On the riding excursions we frequently took enfamille, 
his sister Barbara and I funking along behind admiring the 
scenery, used to tremble for their animals' legs as they pounded 
along the dazzling white limestone roads on a hot August 
afternoon. 1 

It is a question whether anybody cares to know what any- 
body else reads. I personally like any passage in a biography 
which refers to the books and the reading tastes of its 

1 In an amusing passage Swinburne asserts that Jowett would have 
made a f oxhunter of merit had he devoted his talents to that pursuit. One 
reason for this was that the Master of Balliol's love of Nature was so 
"temperate" that he would not have drawn rein to look about him, 
though hounds had been running up the Vale of Tempe or across the 
Garden of Eden. Craven — where we live — is designed by Providence 
for the sudden and violent effects of wild weather. There is enough 
hill for its scowl ; enough sweep for its smile. Charles was equably 
aware of all this, but seldom called attention to these phenomena, 
whereas his brother Tommy, the late Sir Mathew Wilson, and I myself 
were overfond of doing so. — R. 

6 




CHARLES LISTER ON JOKY. 
Circa 1895-6. 



Memoir 

subject. So let me here say something about Charles's ways 
with books. 

As a family — without reaching Mr. Gibbon's l mark, who 
avers that he would not have exchanged his invincible love of 
reading for the treasures of India — we were all as much 
attached to desultory reading as to regular riding. I remem- 
ber, when I was young, a Sunday with Mr. Jowett at Balliol. 
At that time he wished me to take more pains with myself 
and more advantage of my opportunities ; thus we had some 
correspondence as to the possibilities of my becoming "a 
serious-minded peer." This was, as it were, the cliche 2 of 
the inquiry. At the outset I remember Mr. Jowett asked me 
in a letter whether I was prepared to read for two full hours a 
day — not two hours at a time, but that reading should take up 
that space of time daily — whatever the weather, whatever my 
inclinations, and whatever my circumstances. This, he wrote, 
sounded easy enough, but that it was a covenant or a stipulation 
by no means so easily carried out. I forget what I replied at 
the time, but, a sufferer from an unchartered freedom, I am 
afraid I have not achieved the gentle task he proposed. 

But let me get away from this personal digression and the 
recollections it has induced of Mr. Jowett.3 

As quite a little boy of five or six Charles and I became agreed 
upon a common liking for the same sort of subjects. Our 
especial favourites were books about Indian shooting ; we pre- 
ferred, above all, the literary society of man-eaters ; then came 
pig-sticking and the habits of elephants, and the manners and 
customs of aboriginal tribes such as the Bheels and the Gonds. 
I remember reading aloud to him — he cannot have been more 
than seven or eight years old — the tribal and tradition chapters 
of Forsyth's most admirable " Highlands of Central India." 
It may be remembered that Gibbon discovered in the Dynasties 

1 Gibbon's " Autobiography." 

3 This definition of aspiration was mine. It seemed to amuse him, 
and in the two or three letters he wrote me he diverted himself and me 
at the expense of any such transformation. — R. 

3 As a visitor to Balliol, not an alumnus of Oxford. 

7. 



Charles Lister 

of Assyria and Egypt " his top and cricket ball," and on the 
very morning of his return for the holidays from his private 
school, I remember that Charles made a careful digest from 
the Whitaker's Almanack sketch of our Indian Empire. The 
Mogul Empire and Akbar Khan were at this time his prime 
favourites, but minor states and ephemeral chiefs held an equal 
place in his affections. In M. de Lisle Adam's phrase, 77 gardait 
au cceur les richesses steriles dun grand nombre de rois oublies. 
These early tastes or instincts held good. Thus, writing to his 
friend Tommy Lascelles, in August 191 1, he says, "I am feeling 
rather unambitious just at present, and inclined to chuck the 
Service [Diplomatic] in favour of anthropology and hunting " ; 
and on one of my visits to Rome somewhere about this time, 
he desired me to read some chapters of the " Golden Bough," 
and more especially of Miss Mary Kingsley's travels in the 
hinterlands of the Congo, Reminding me at the time of these 
very early readings together. 

His mother possessed the gift of reading aloud in a most 
lucid, pleasing, and untiring way: thus during the period of his 
earlier schooldays at Rottingdean and at Eton, and during the 
last year or two of his brother Tommy's life, a good deal of 
reading aloud went on at home at odd times, both at Gisburne 
and in London. But I do not think Charles was as avid a 
listener as either Tommy or myself, though I remember dis- 
tinctly his enjoyment of bits of Pickwick and the Legend 
of Montrose and Waverley — this amounted to delight or 
even transport ; but it was always rather a case of " bits " with 
him — as, I imagine, with most people. 

Thus in Waverley I remember his pleasure — we all shared 
it, being fond of and used to horse-dealers — at the bit when 
Lieutenant Jinker (the horse-coper) transfers, with indignation, 
all the blame of Balmawhapple's catastrophe x from the mare to 
the Laird himself, who had insisted, against the Lieutenant's 
advice, in riding her in a martingale instead of with a running 

1 All Scott-ites know that at the battle of Preston the Laird of Balma- 
whapple was carried where he would not — into the enemy's fire — by the 
mare he was riding getting the better of him. 

8 



Memoir 

ring on the snaffle rein ; and he was always on the look out for 
the Baron of Bradwardine's dissertations on feudal tenures and 
ancient law. In the same way he valued the tactical canons 
and commentaries of Captain Dalgetty and his martial affection 
for his model, Gustavus Adolphus. But Charles got on regret- 
tably well without either Thackeray or Dickens. I don't think 
that he had ever read any of the former until the time of his 
convalescence at the Blue Sisters Convent at Malta. He then 
wrote to me and to Mrs. Cornish discriminating appreciations 
of Pendennis and Vanity Fair : Sir Pitt Crawley's ways and 
his establishments in London and in Hampshire pleased him 
especially. 

On the other hand, his loyalty to Surtees, dating almost from 
the nursery, was all that could be desired. Alas ! his mother 
never cared about Surtees, though she delighted in and often 
re-read " Market Harborough," so Charles read this author to 
himself or with me ; we constantly discussed and considered 
together the teaching of those admirable novels. Upon the 
whole we agreed in preferring Surtees's quieter treatment of life 
and character to the Hogarthian or Rowlandson manner which 
the author manages with success indeed, but with exaggeration. 
Thus we liked best the by-products and sidelights of his close 
serio-comic observation — his description of the look of a land- 
scape, the feel of the weather, of country houses and country 
gentlemen or their horses and their habits. In short, we felt 
more at home with Mr. Jawleyford and Mr. Sponge than with 
Lord Scamperdale and Mr. Jorrocks. 

Coming back for a moment to " bits " : in the days I am 
thinking of I was — and am still — fond of reading Biographies l 
and Letters, and I sometimes administered a dose all round 
from this sort of book. He usually approved of my selection, 
but seldom discussed or elaborated the point or the argument as 
his mother would, and he never read that sort of book himself. 

' Charles and I both read too much from the " Index," i.e. the bits we 
fancied or wanted. However, in the family I held the record of having 
read the whole of Archbishop Benson's Life from cover to cover. This 
feat was held to be in the nature of an exploit. 



Charles Lister 

I do not think he meddled much with English Poetry t 
though he had a haphazard sort of acquaintance with its 
notables. Pope he neglected, and when he was about thirteen 
dismissed as an ingenious writer. When at Rome he was 
absorbed in Dante and read it in Italian, but as we were 
not on common ground I paid little attention to several things 
he said to me about this. I got on better when, as he often 
did, he commended to me the adventures of the Odyssey and 
the justice and vitality of its epithets and figures. Passages 
from Greek plays, too, of the more cheerful sort — not fateful 
or tragic — he sometimes called my attention to on the same 
grounds of beauty, truth, or charm. 

Times of instant loss and sorrow are the common heritage of 
most families. On one of those occasions — when it seems 
difficult to plead justification and impossible to .furnish assent — 
I remember reading him with admiration and some sense of 
healing Johnson's lines on the trite thesis that what is 
decreed is best. The poet eulogizes the hard task of cajoling 
comfort out of any human theories of consolation. He seeks 
and finds it elsewhere : 

Yet when the scene of sacred presence fires, 
And strong devotion to the skies aspires, 
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, 
Obedient passions and a will resigned : 
For Love, which scarce collective man can fill ; 
For Patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill ; 
For Faith, that panting for a happier seat 
Counts death kind Nature's signal of retreat — 
With these Celestial Wisdom calms the mind, 
And makes the Happiness she does not ^ind. 

They left him cold ; indeed he never shared my views of 
eighteenth-century taste. Dealing himself in simple and un- 
furbished ideas, the eighteenth-century formal treatment of 
the emotions — laying them out, as it were, in avenues and 
groves and gazebos — was not to his liking or, at all events, 
found no room in his philosophy. In the same way he cared 
little or nothing for the Essayists of the Spectator. Their 
dignity and classicism he respected, but he thought their 
10 



Memoir 

regard for equipoise and elegance often whittled away and 
denaturalized the real thing. 

I now come to his relations with the Independent Labour 
Party, but cannot fix with any exactness their beginnings ; any- 
how he took to this kind of thing — at least to Socialism — whilst 
he was still at Eton. An Eton friend of his writes that as he first 
remembered him in 1902, he did not realize him as a " budding 
Socialist" ; it was not until 1905, he writes, that this side ap- 
peared and shone out fully. " Then came the intense sympathy 
with the Russian people — that £7$ collection after a public 
meeting, portraits of Father Gapon all round his room — half in 
joke and half serious — and Tolstoi always to the fore." At 
this time I found it difficult to account for this new departure, 
having regard to his Quietest aptitude for making light of the 
best and worst of things as they came his way. But still, I was 
always aware of an extreme and eager susceptibility to Causes. 
In 191 1 he writes to his friend T. Lascelles, from the Villa 
Rosebery at Naples, " I am a great exponent of the Doctrine 
of Divine Economy, and I do not quarrel when I see no chance 
to convert " ; but in the earlier phases of his I.L.P. associations 
nothing of this appeared : Divine Economy was in flagrant 
disgrace long before that — so was a very old friend of mine 
who owned property at Hoxton. When Charles was still 
at his private school he became much interested in a Hox- 
ton mission and Hoxton affairs, and "property" came in 
for serious censure. Yet his Socialism — I use this meaning- 
less word for lack of a better — was of quite a good-natured 
sort. Mr. Goldwin Smith predicted that the triumphs of 
plutocracy and of Grosvenor Square would end by making 
him an American citizen ; but Charles had no quarrel with 
plutocracy, or with Grosvenor Square ; they were in them- 
selves Causes, and so respectable ; nor did he ever bother 
about persons or their views. For instance, in the days 
when he favoured nationalization of the raw material of in- 
dustry — including our few family acres — and a comprehensive 
reconstruction of society, he never weakened in his liking for 
the landed gentry, the amusements of the leisured, and the 



Charles Lister 

Anglican clergy. Even the one or two important nobles who 
from time to time he encountered did not appear to make any 
disagreeable impression on him ; indeed he often commended 
their spacious ways of providing outdoor pleasures and good 
fare for themselves and others. At one time Charles was 
alleged to have flown the red necktie of extreme opinions ; but 
a revolution would have had to proceed in due course of law 
— so I understood, and at the time he most favoured the 
nationalization of land he told me that he approved of some 
form of material compensation for the landlords — not indeed 
as a matter of abstract right, but of conventional equity. 
In short, Charles would never have agreed with Bernhardi that 
law was only a makeshift. 

In our conversations about Labour he never seemed much 
concerned with the economics of the problems ; for instance, 
the relation of Capital to Labour, cutting of prices, under- 
selling, margins of profit, etc. Nothing of this sort seemed 
of any essential concern — he was pervaded with the notion that 
something or other might be evolved from nowhere in par- 
ticular and applied to Labour conditions, which would antici- 
pate the contingencies and remedy the ills inseparable from the 
vicissitudes of our present industrial system. This conjecture 
never seemed to derive from Mill and the Utilitarians — it 
had its origin in some counsel of perfection, at times so little 
palpable in his own mind as to be not easily defined in con- 
versation, nor, as far as I know, did he ever seek to appease his 
discontents at the nature of things as they were, with his pen. 
Yet he never seemed bewildered either by the variety or by 
the magnitude of his tasks. I enjoyed this Socialist or Fabian 
period, and was sorry in a way when its blood-heat passed off. 
But this inability to solidify notions by words was certainly 
a bar to the fuller comprehension of his ideals. However, 
Charles was eminently practical. I felt that he had things 
in his mind which were capable of practical expression, which 
some day he would express. 

But the day came when he abandoned these Castles in Spain 
and resorted to the Sidney Webbs. I use the term generi- 
12 



Memoir 

cally. The remedies for the race — at this time wholly 
comprehended and involved in Labour — were to be pre- 
scribed regulations, by-laws and returns, based on statistics 
and worked out to decimals. I was able to lend him two or 
three books of this dismal gospel, and I got him more from the 
London Library. Yet, curiously enough, I do not remember 
seeing him read this sort of book, though I suppose he did. 
Mine still have a few unintelligible marginal markings and notes, 
but he added none — they are my own. Nor did I ever see him 
taking notes, or come across notes of his ; although at the time 
he was reading hard and successfully for Greats he did a great 
deal of it in my sitting-room at Gisburne, which he much 
favoured when at home. 

But let me return to his relations with the I.L.P. The day 
came when he elected to be received into its bosom ; we were 
neither pleased nor displeased. His mother thought it a mis- 
take to contract himself out of being helped by the machinery 
and caucus support of either of the two great recognized parties 
— at that time a condition of adoption and grace — but she was 
reassured by Mr. A. J. Balfour, who was mildly interested and 
approving. Indeed, he pointed out to her that Charles would 
get all sorts of experience and some sort of special knowledge 
which might be of more use to him in after-life than if he kept 
Selling Platers or ran an actress. I was present and I heartily 
concurred. The ceremonies took place at Blackburn, and I 
rather think Mr. and Mrs. Snowden were his hosts for the 
occasion ; anyhow, either then or very soon after he enjoyed 
their hospitality. True, he returned to Gisburne with the 
measles, but he made lighter of this testimony of zeal for the 
real thing than his mother or an apprehensive family circle did. 
He always spoke with great pleasure and satisfaction of the 
interest and experience of his sojourn at Blackburn. After 
this initiation, for I dare say a year or so, he appeared to be 
conducting a regular correspondence with various " Com- 
rades." He lived and moved encumbered with papers, returns, 
and leaflets ; received and wrote many letters, and set up a 
business-like yellow leather dispatch-box of the shape and size 

13 



Charles Lister 

now standardized by serious-minded persons. This vade mecutn 
was constantly being mislaid or left in trains, but it bore a 
charmed life. This was not a cheerful phase, and he often 
seemed to be brooding over the intractable anomalies of a 
troublesome world. Still, there was light as well as shade. 
One day a reception of the I.L.P. and a tea-party took place 
at Gisburne ; speeches were made by leading Extremists slightly 
cramped in style by their courteous reservations in favour of one 
particular park and one particular proprietor. Mr. Clough, the 
Member for our division, made a capital, if unexpected, speech, 
all but rebuking Charles for having acted hastily in cutting 
himself off from the traditions to which it had pleased God 
to call him. 

Why he left the Independent Labour Party I never discovered 
— " Wise men change their minds — fools never " is a good 
Yorkshire adage, but I can hardly think it was on the alleged 
ground of an attack in some silly paper on Lord Lovat's or our 
own family at the time of his sister Laura's marriage. Anyhow, 
he changed, and he certainly came to disapprove of their more 
recent methods. Latterly he said I was more of a Socialist 
than he was, and I remember his telling me when he elected 
to spend four months' leave from his diplomatic post at Rome 
in Indian travel, that his interest now was to see the working 
of the Imperial machine, and to get to know some of the men 
who worked it. The same friend whom I quoted writes, " I 
last saw him in Rome after his Socialist views had changed, 
and found him immersed in anthropology." Possibly he never 
lost his early interest, but it became platonic and critical. Thus 
he writes to T. Lascelles, August 25, 191 1, on the Labour 
situation at home : " It is appalling. I feel the Labour griev- 
ance as strongly as ever, but I've lost faith in most of the 
remedies I used to believe in. If only they could get back 
to the old sober trade unionism and to collective bargaining 
on the same lines. But a change of spirit in most of the 
trades unions is required before this is achieved. They are 
shockingly out of hand — except the miners and the great 
cotton trade organizations." 

14 



Memoir 

Sir Rennell Rodd in his impressions of Charles, which come 
later on, is of opinion that he would have done well in diplomacy, 
and I believe his resignation would have been viewed with regret 
on public grounds by one or two others competent to judge of 
his merits and possibilities. After his first wound Charles was 
given the opportunity of returning to Foreign Office work. 
They were short-handed in Downing Street, and I was told 
that the suggestion that he should return — his year's fighting 
leave being nearly up — was conveyed to him in kind and 
even complimentary terms. He never mentioned anything of 
this to me ; but an Eton and Balliol friend of Charles, Captain 
Bruce Ottley, A.S.C., writes me that the Foreign Office letter 
offering him special and interesting work reached Charles at 
Alexandria. Then and there he sat down and declined it. 

" It happened in this way. Charles and I had made friends 
with the Assistant Provost-Marshal, and we had arranged to 
go together in search of some native ammunition stores which 
had been located close to my camp at El Zahiria. When 
Charles arrived about 7 p.m. I had just received orders to 
return to England on the next morning. I told him this, 
and he told me that he had just been offered a job at home, 
but that he felt he could not accept it. As far as I can 
remember his actual words were : ' I feel I ought to see this 
thing through, and I can't bear to think of leaving the 
wonderful fellows of my battalion.' He then asked me if he 
might write some letters for me to take back with me. I took 
him to my tent, which was pitched on the sand outside the 
mess-house, and he wrote by the meagre light of a hurricane- 
lamp that flickered in the cold wind that always blows in the 
evening in the desert." Yet I am certain that he liked his work 
at Rome, as I visited him there in two successive years. And in 
191 1, when he was beginning to learn his business at the 
Foreign Office, he writes to one of his most regular corre- 
spondents, " I love my work and am thrilled by Weltpolitik ; I 
am not very good at it, but it is routine work up to the present 
and what excites me is not what I actually do but what I 
read and the papers I see." 

15 



Charles Lister 

All this is now but idle speculation. The War had taken 
possession of him with all the intensity of the Crusades of 
his younger days. Perhaps even with some of their glamour 
— not much of this, though. This War was a very different 
affair and occasion. In Hooker's phrase, he looked upon 
our going into it as "the strong and invincible remonstrance 
of sound reason." He was no longer a boy liable to the 
Tolstois and the Gapons and the Fabians. The Call had come 
upon him as the Holy Ghost came down upon the apostles — 
as a sudden great sound in the likeness of fiery tongues. 

In his last letter to me, written from the hospital ship 
Gascon on August 26th — he died on the 28th — his only com- 
plaint is of this third and tiresome interruption of the business 
in hand. From the nature of the wound I think he must 
have been in suffering, or anyhow in discomfort equivalent 
to suffering, but this letter is as clearly and freely written 
in respect of point and clearness as any he ever wrote me, 
and the envelope is addressed with unusual distinctness and 
vigour of pencil. He speaks of the hours going slowly and 
of his not feeling up to much reading — though he stuck to 
his books throughout — owing to the monotony of the fixed 
supine position enforced by his surgeon, but beyond that 
there is no word of complaint, only regret that this last 
wound may prove a longer job than the others. 

This is what Mr. Mayne, the Chaplain of the Gascon, wrote 
me at the time; it is dated August 29, 191 5. Charles had died 
at 7 o'clock in the evening on the 28th, after being taken aboard 
from Cape Helles somewhere about midnight on the 25th. 

" He had very skilled attention and very careful nursing 
while on board, and was, I know, a wonderful patient. He 
never complained or even spoke of his wound, and if 
he had pain he bore it very bravely and patiently. But 
I believe that he did not have too much pain. We talked 
together sometimes, but he was easily tired, and one could 
not stay with him long. My great regret is that I did not 
know yesterday that he was so much worse until rather late 
16 



Memoir 

and when I went to see him he was unconscious. It is 
seldom comparatively that one sees a man in such command 
of himself, and so controlled. The books at his bedside 
spoke for his literary taste, 1 and the day before he died I 
lent him a copy of the poems of Rupert Brooke whom we 
both knew, and who was in the Howe Battalion with 
your son. 

" As I write we are waiting for the boat to take his body 
ashore at Mudros, where the burial will take place to- 
morrow. He will lie almost within sound of the heavy guns." 

It is very difficult to hit on the seemly balance of anything 
of the kind I am trying to write, especially having regard to 
our close relationship and to our always having been great 
friends and a good deal together. Memory takes me tightly 
by the hand and leads me back to all kinds of scenes and 
incidents and places in his company : to the flat horizons and 
the tulips and the picture galleries of Holland ; to charming 
Munich, its opera and its Bach-abends, its overheated but 
excellent hotel, its superlative caviare and beer ; to the grey- 
green sweep of the Roman Campagna and hounds running 
over the stationatas ; to Milan and to Bergamo ; to the steep 
hills and stones above Helmsdale ; to Ross's Hotel and our 
symposia with Mr. Ross himself — lovely August weather ; liver- 
and-white pointers of beauty and staunchness ; to many talks 
and rides and walks ; to London theatres and pavements ; 
to the uplands and rough pastures of Wigglesworth and 
Bowland. 

But I am exceeding and straying outside the confines of 
my task, and I must let his letters speak for themselves, 
and rely upon some of his friends to deal with other things 
outside my own experiences and knowledge of Charles. It 
would not be possible, and I do not think it would be 

1 Amongst these — I have the list — were the Purgatory of Dante, the 
Koran, a Turkish grammar, the Oxford book of Italian verse, the Life 
and Works of Goethe, a D'Annunzio novel, and the Imitation of Christ. 
— R. 

C 17. 



Charles Lister 

becoming, for me to attempt any estimate of the higher quality 
and value of the few years of his mortal life. 

So may it be, that so dead yesterday, 
No sad-eyed ghost, but generous and gay, 
May serve your memories like almighty wine. 

I know not where these lines come from or whose they 
are ; their grammar is certainly not unimpeachable. Years 
ago I copied them on to a foreign envelope, and came across 
it again the other day. As far as a few words can assert 
that the memories of Life dispute with success the supremacy 
of Death they seem to manage a good deal. 

RIBBLESDALE. 
October 1916. 



.18 



Letters 



I 

LETTERS, JULY 1909 TO MAY 1911, FROM 
GERMANY AND ELSEWHERE 

The following letters, chiefly to Eton and Oxford friends, mark the close 
of Charles's Balliol life. The examination for Greats at Oxford was over 
and he had got his First. To this success perception as well as know- 
ledge of Greek history had contributed ; but, perhaps, the chief factor all 
along was his anxiety about his mother's health and his great desire to 
give her the pleasure of his First. He now went to read in Germany, but 
still clung to every association formed at Eton and at his University. 
Mr. Lascelles was a great friend who graduated at Trinity, Oxford, 
and then prepared to go up for the Foreign Office examination. Their 
correspondence lasted for years.— R. 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

GlSBURNE, 

July 23, 1909. 
My viva was as follows : 

On July 22nd, Lister entered the schools punctually at 9.30, 
and repaired to lecture-room No. 7, where the Rev. J. Walker 
and F. C. Schiller were closeted. Lister was ordered to return 
at 9.45. At 9.45 he was put through five rather awkward 
minutes by Walker, on the distinction between chattel, slave, 
and apprentice knave. His triumph was only partial. Walker 
beamed and was affability and kindness itself. 1 don't think 
it can have made very much difference to my class, whatever 
that might have been. 

The best of luck to you, dear Tommy.* I shall feel quite 
hipped if you don't get your First. 

Baffling in this respect as the boy Ascanius, Mr. Lascelles, whose 
baptismal names are Alan Frederick, is and has always been called 
Tommy."— R. 

21 



Charles Lister 

To the Same. 

Grand Hotel Continental, Munich, 

August 2, 1909. 

Many thanks for your delightful letter. It is very kind of 
you to think so well of me. I fear your confidence in my 
powers is rather misplaced. I seldom feel anything like a 
great man, or one who will in any way particularly justify his 
existence. I am glad it was "all right," because (1) it gave 
pleasure to me, my relations, and friends ; (2) it gave annoyance 
to some who think of me — if they think of me at all — as 
generally good for nothing. I'm afraid such things as Firsts 
are largely matters of luck. I got questions that suited me, 
though I didn't think so at the time of the exam. I wish I 
had the power of feeling more thrilled, and more confident in 
myself, like Julian. Still, I am very happy. The odds against 
Firsts are more or less what you say, I think ; and you certainly 
did capitally in getting your Second, seeing your Oxford life 
was so full in other ways, and that you did not work much till 
last year. I wish you had got a First, and thought you might, 
when you knew so much Greek history. We got such good 
papers in the Greek history and it would have been pleasanter, 
after we'd talked over so much Greats shop together, to be in 
the same class. Still, it is no use repining. 

I have just been at Bayreuth. I saw Parsifal and Lohen- 
grin. Parsifal well done, but bad singers in the leading parts ; 
Lohengrin is probably the worst he wrote, but as performed 
at Bayreuth it was perfectly glorious. The choruses made 
one weep — they were so beautifully done. 1 I went with my 
landlady, who showed me all her relatives. I took her into 
a sort of supper, and on coming out was confronted by her 

* When quite a little boy Charles was often unable to restrain himself 
at passages in plays which he admired or objected to. I remember his 
being profoundly stirred at Bernard Shaw's " Major Barbara." On these 
occasions he would get up in his seat and loudly express his admiration 
or censure — though he kept himself in better order at concerts or opera. 
Yet music had the same kind of effect upon him. He forgot himself, with 
most of us a difficult thing to do. — R. 

33 



Germany and Elsewhere 

husband, who asked me some question in German, to which 
I replied "/a." Lord knows what the question was — it might 
have been whether I was trying to supplant him, for all I knew. 
This sort of thing, however, improves one's German. Munich 
is in the throes of a Mozart Festspiel. You come out too late 
for the Festspiel, but will see the Ring as often as you 
please in the normal course of events. Do come out sooner 
than the 25th. 

To the Same. 

Grand Hotel Continental, Munich, 

August 3, 1909. 

I only got your kind wire yesterday owing to change of 
address, etc. Yes, it is satisfactory. A First is a kind of 
unknown quantity : those who get it are told it is of great 
importance. Those who don't are consoled with the thought 
that it doesn't matter what sort of degree one takes, etc. — such 
is life. 

I heard Parsifal and Lohengrin done at Bayreuth. Lohen- 
grin, a most magnificent performance, quite perfect, except 
for a rather poor Gertrud. Parsifal not so well performed, 
but what an opera ! The choruses were magnificently 
sung. The orchestra not so good as the Munich Orchestra, 
but very fine. I didn't find any particular " atmosphere " at 
Bayreuth. Just the same sort of thing as you get at the 
Festspiel at Munich. Save that at Bayreuth there is an 
immensely powerful cult of the Wagner family, and the 
railway officials are inordinately stupid. There is a good old 
Opera House at Bayreuth, seventeenth century and perfectly 
preserved. Well worth seeing. 

More anon. 

To the Same. 

Ohmstrasse i, Munich. 

(No date — prob. mid-October 1909.) 
How I liked your letter, but how it roused regrets in me. 
I'll tell you why. It is very unlikely I shall winter in Munich — 

2 3 



Charles Lister 

I can't learn German in Munich. Nothing but English and 
Americans in pensions, and such-like, and also even if you get 
out of pension circles, you always meet people who talk English 
or French better than one talks German oneself/ so it comes to 
the same thing ; and German is a helpless talk for the ingenuous 
if he remains here. 

It is too sad. My plans are to go in for the Merton Prize 
Fellowship ; if I get it (! ! !) to stop in Oxford for a year reading 
for All Souls, and try and get something of a Donship at the 
Alma Mater, which I want badly to do, as I am very interested 
in book-learning just at present. If I don't get it, to come back 
to the Fatherland, and grub up the language in some small, 
boring place where one don't see English — I contemplate the 
latter alternative as practically certain — and then try to pass 
my diplomatic in August 1910. It's bloody because I love 
Munich. 

I've made a few acquaintances, whom you are sure to get to 
know — a Graf von Leyden and his sister, Lady Blennerhasset, 
the English Minister and wife — pretty well ; and the Austrian 
and Italian Ministers' wives — only sort of card-leaving terms ; 
also an opera singer, a Miss Maud Fay, who will be away till 
the middle of November. There are no Germans here at this 
time of year, as it is the saison tnorte. 

I may be in Munich on my return to the Fatherland, for a 
few days, but I don't even know that. My town will probably 
be Cassel, of all places. How sad about Ned Lawley ! I 
hadn't seen it. It is curious how all these lads who are our 
contemporaries die violent deaths. Dicky Gibbs was a 
tragedy. 

I sail on the 25th for the Merton P.F. [Prize Fellowship] 
exam. So I shan't see you unless I get a glimpse previous to 
departure. But I've made up my mind to be thoroughly bored 
for this winter, and Cassel seems unavoidable. 

I have just read the au secours incident in Anatole France's 
Pingouins and laughed much. Julian will not write to me. 
I have been frightfully happy here. English friends through 
the whole time. Eddy here now. Have seen Kaiser to-day. 
24 



Germany and Elsewhere 

I cry at the thought of not meeting you here, but feel I must 
learn German. Please take this as a tear-stained epistle from 
a strong man greatly unstrung. 

To the Same. 

Gisburme, 

October 12, 1909. 

I have written to my mother to write to a certain Graf von 
Leyden about you. I knew him at Munich and loved him — the 
best of men, but I don't feel I am in a quite strong enough 
position to give you a letter to him, as I was but an introducee 
myself. Mother, however, is a great friend of his, and he would 
do anything she would ask him. Leyden lives with his sister, a 
certain Lady Blennerhasset, an esprit fort, who will frighten 
you at first, but whom you will ultimately like very much. . . . 
I did not get the Merton touch ; my History paper was the 
best. This is pleasing, as one Giles was competing, who has 
for two years lectured at Edinburgh on Greek history ; but my 
Philosophy only second class, as in Greats. So I shall be 
coming out to Germany again, and will see you all right for a 
day or two, which will be delightful. 

I am living quite a Julianesque life here, alone in the house, 
and hunting and shooting wild pheasants in-the-hedgerows 
sort of business, which I always find fun enough for a modest 
performer like myself. 

I only hope Leyden will be in Munich ; anyway you will see 
Lady Blennerhasset. She wants fearless handling — not after the 
patrician fashion, viz. rather liberal conversation, as she is old- 
fashioned — but quiet and persevering gentlemanliness. . . . 

To the Same. 

HOHERWEG 12, GOTTINGEN, 

December 4, 1909. 

I am sorry you can't do a Berlin. Life is really remarkably 
grossartig in that city. . . . Reginald [Benson] I think wants 

25 



Charles Lister 

to go to Berlin rather than Munich for his Ausflug from his 
studies, because it is the Haupstadt, and he is more likely to 
see more of the soldiers he will have to confront in the coming 
German war. Oscar Fernsemer I know well : he is the son of 
my pension lady, and a very good fellow. I saw little of him. 
because I was grinding like a galley-slave the whole two months 
I was there, but liked him very much. My feelings are also 
that I ought to see Berlin. ... I am reading much news- 
paper matter here, and getting quite an expert in Triple 
Alliances, etc. 

I rather agree with Elcho on the four-poster question, but 
then I am an old-fashioned moralist, and not always in 
sympathy with the spirit of my age. 1 

To Edward Speyer. 

HOHERWEG 12, GOTTINGEN, 

December 22, 1909. 

Thank you very much for your last letter, which I delayed 
to answer till I had been to Berlin. I went and I saw the 
"Leonardo" Bust. It is certainly not by Lucas. I think it is 
quite out of the question when one looks at Lucas's other 
work ; whether it is a Leonardo is another matter. In my poor 
judgment I don't think it is, as it has not the Leonardo smile, 
and has the hair done in a way not usual in Leonardo's, and in 
general has not the charm one would expect from a Leonardo. 
Bode has been much chaffed, and has taken the matter very 
much to heart. He apparently spent .£8,000 entirely on his 
own responsibility and unassisted by the advice of any com- 
mittee ; it seems a curious position of affairs that so much 
responsibility should be in one man's hands. I thought the 
Kaiser Friedrich Museum a wonderful collection — the most 

1 This refers to some amateur tableaux which were given at the Court 
Theatre about this time. Passages in the life of St. Ursula were por- 
trayed. Miss Cynthia Charteris played the St. Ursula of Carpaccio's 
picture, notwithstanding her — on this occasion Roman — father's dis- 
approval. — R. 

36 



Germany and Elsewhere 

wonderful I have seen, I think, as all schools are pretty 
adequately represented. I expected to find Berlin very much 
more ugly than it is. It is a modern and rather mushroom 
growth, like the Hohenzollern dynasty ; but there is a certain 
air of efficiency about it which pleases me a good deal, and a 
general impression of work and good management. The 
Sieger Alles is not a thing of beauty, and the Royal Family 
is somewhat lavish with the statues which meet you every 
turn you take ; but they compare favourably enough with the 
gentlemen in frock-coats and trousers outside the House of 
Commons, who hold scrolls in their hands. There is a grand 
ice rink in Berlin, where I performed with the skates and much 
interfered with the people practising elaborate figures. From 
all I heard the hohe gesellschaft is confined to a very small 
circle — some eight or nine great families and one or two 
embassies. The professors and artists have their own circles. 
This seems curious to the English. I don't think the Berlin 
Opera is anything very much out of the common. We heard 
the Walkyrie poorly given, and a good level performance of 
Siegfried — very fine, really. Also a good performance of La 
Tosca — remarkably good for a German company in a subor- 
dinate opera-house. We didn't go to any plays, as I have to 
read a play before I can see it appreciatively. I have seen 
" Moral " again, which, if you remember, we saw together at 
Munich. 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

174 Rue de la Pompe, Paris, 

March 27, 1910. 

Please excuse pencil and delays in replying to your first- 
class letter of Friday, 1 8th, which filled me with delight. . . . 
I am afraid I shall have to go to Scoones. I quite agree 
with what you say about Tristan not " gripping." I don't 
think, however, I put it " top of all." I think it worse than 
the Meistersinger and the Ring, though the Liebestod and other 
little bits are the best things he ever wrote. 

27 



Charles Lister 

My life here is very hard-worked — an occasional play, and 
Faust last Wednesday, and Samson et Dalila next ditto 
— otherwise uneventful. I don't like my philological studies 
and loathe the grammar and pronunciation difficulties, which 
are always cropping up. In spite, however, of the dullness of 
the work I've been very happy, on the whole, abroad — both in 
Germany and here. In Germany I was with a really charming 
family, though very pious, and met heaps of people I liked ; 

and here I am also having fun. Madame is an excellent 

woman, and the most gaulois talker about the mistresses of 
the divers French kings and the misdemeanours of the past 
and present rulers of France. I think she likes me ; she is 
certainly lavish in her compliments, and says I am handsome, 
well-conducted, and likely to be much desired. This is not 
a prospect that refreshes me very much. My misogyny is 
still burning with a bright and pure flame. 

I am rather in a phase of a sort of melting-pot scepticism 
all round, which I fancy will last for some time. I am not, 
however, very troubled about it. I like Philip Sassoon much 
and he really quite amuses me. 

If you see Twiggy [Anderson], you might give him my 
address ; if he can spare any of his time from the dissipations 
that are the duty of visiting football teams, as I should like 
to see him. Well, this is a dull letter, but written in a palpi- 
tation of excitement at the prospect of seeing you at the 
end of the month. 

To the Same. 

New Milton, Hants, 

July 12, 1910. 

I don't know if I shall be able to manage 20th to 25th, as 
I may be doing a riding-tour with Julian Grenfell those days. 
... I am reading Ferrero, who is a great artist. I am all 
alone in a gloomy hotel, as I have been smitten with cold, and 
I can't turn into my mother's mansion yet as I may be infectious 
for a day or two. Ferrero on Caesar makes me weep. It is a 
28 



Germany and Elsewhere 

much more human presentation than Mommsen's, and I am 
feeling rather sad. . . . 

To Mrs. Speyer. 

38 Bedford Mansions, W.C., 

August 28, 1910. 

Just one line of very warm thanks for my delightful week-end 
at Ridgehurst. 1 It was most enjoyable and very refreshing 
to the poor jaded worker. It was most kind of you and 
Mr. Speyer to ask me. Thanks to my iron constitution, I 
don't feel exhausted after my labours at tennis and croquet, 
but quite like a giant refreshed. Eddy had lunch with me in 
town and was sped as a parting guest to Waterloo, where 
I hope he caught his train to the New Forest. 

Please give my respects to any of your charming family who 
may yet be with you, and not scattered by the general break-up 
that takes place on Monday. 

Thank you again, and Mr. Speyer too, for all your kindness 
to me. 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

GlSBURNE, 

September 30, 1910. 

Thanks awfully for your epistle. I am very much afraid 
there will be no one at Gis. all these days after Tuesday, till 
the wedding is over. 2 I have to worry about medicals, etc., 
though to judge from the physique of the diplomats known 
to me, I don't fancy that stern demands will be made on 
my soundness. ... I hope you have been enjoying your 

1 Mrs. Edward Speyer introduced Charles in many ways to the best 
traditions of modern music. He especially admired the songs of Brahms, 
some of them expressly written for her. Charles often enjoyed the 
hospitality of Ridgehurst with his friends Ferdinand and Edward Speyer 
— Eton and Balliol friends — the former was Nettleship Scholar at Oxford 
in 1909. — B. W. C. 

2 His sister Laura's wedding, which took place in October,— R. 

2.9 



Charles Lister 

Scotland. I saw Guy B. [Benson] at the Inverness meeting 
ball. He said you had been unlucky with the stags, but later 
reports of your deeds ring like the account of a triumphal 
progress. I have been having quite fun with my Scotland. 
I have been shooting with varied success, and making further 
acquaintance of my new in-laws, all of whom I like very much. 
Heavens, what a dull letter ! Alan Parsons is here and in very 
good form. 

To the Same. 

34 Gloucester Place, W., 

October 18, 1910. 

... I am very happy, in full swing at the Foreign Office, 
effectively impeding the work of my department, under the 
patient rule of Nic., 1 who is a most excellent man, and whom 
I find capital company. I am busy, and tied down, which I 
like. I loathe being at a loose end. . . . Well, good-bye, old 
friend — a line abt. Thursday night, if combined action is in 
any way possible. I am a member of the St. James's Club, so 
fear nothing of what man can do unto me. 

To Alan Parsons. 

Cavendish Hotel, 

January 2, 1911. 

This is how to treat Madame : 2 (1) Treat her as a 

marchioness, capable of unbending, but still very high in 
the social, moral, and intellectual hierarchy. (2) Laugh 
at her Rabelaisian stories, even if you don't understand. 
(3) Feign affection for the house cat, which stinks. As to 
the dog, you can take your own line. (4) Don't ever find 
her out in conversation ; she is very glib on many questions, 
historical and literary, but wildly inaccurate. She has to be 
treated as infallible. (5) Try and check her talking about 
the exam, at meal-times. She can be a bore on this subject. 

• The Hon. Harold Nicolson. — R. 

* The mistress of a French pension. 

30 



Germany and Elsewhere 

Buddha is decidedly preferable. (6) Madame loves conversa- 
tion, so be talkative, but avoid too much blasphemy. It 
goes down with Madame, but not with Madame mkre. 
(7) Tolerate Madame mere. 

To the Same. 

I am staying at the Trinity Mission House with G. L. in his 
new sphere of influence. There is a programme of the day 
neatly framed in every room. 



Breakfast 


... 8 a.m. 


Matins 


... 8.30 a.m 


Prayers ... ... 


... 9 a.m. 


Luncheon 


... 1 p.m. 


Evensong 


... 6.30 p.m 



I like the meals and hours of orison sandwiched in together. 
One might spend the whole day between the Lord's table 
and one's host's ditto. It is very characteristic of organized 
English churchmanship. . . . 

I ?am a great exponent of the doctrine of Divine Economy, 
and do not quarrel when I have no chance to convert. 

Laffan is in No. 38 for several days. I trust his yoke 
will be easy and his burden light. 1 



To A. F. Lascelles. 

Foreign Office, 

February 18, 1911. 

Many thanks for your delightful letter, which sent a ray of 
sunshine into our rather grey official lives, and cheered us up 
wonderful. I am glad you like Madame, and get on with her 
so well. She is a great dear, and a capital talker — wildly 
inaccurate whenever she makes a statement, but clever as a 
monkey. I should have loved to have seen Madame's passage 

1 Some chambers where the regulations as to hours, light, and food were 
austerely conceived. — R. 

31 



Charles Lister 

at arms with Mr. . I quite agree that he is not very 

formidable, owing to the spread of brain-rot over his system. 
Except for father's leg, 1 my life has been very happy lately. 
I love my work and am thrilled by Wellpolitik. I see the 
usual sort of people, and like my fellow-creatures. Nic. is 
quite the best man, and we get on like a house on fire. ... I am 
not very good at my work, but it is routine up to the present, 
and what excites me is not so much what I actually do, but what 
I read and the papers I see, etc. We are flooded with Welt- 
politik just now, and in a perfect orgie of secret papers. I am 
always finding secret telegrams in the trouser-pocket of my dress- 
clothes, and feeling a perfect fool ; but it is no use minding — 
one must just do better next time. The thing thrills me, and I 
mean to go on. Besides, I'm not the only gaffeur in the office. 
I am sorry to be so bucking and tedious ; but my gods live in 
Whitehall, and it is very much my centre ; and one can't help 
talking about a place where one is a fixture from n to 6.30 
every day. ... I have been living down at the Trinity Mission 
House, a very jolly sojourn, though I use the place rather as a 
hotel. It is very cheap. It is so curious finding anybody 
for whom women in any shape or form simply don't exist. 
I always feel very fish-like myself, as compared to others, but I 

am a positive Don Juan compared to , who takes no sort of 

interest in the business, and is hardly on speaking terms with 
any woman outside his family. . . . Father, I am sorry to say, 
is going to be operated on to-morrow, but there is every chance 
of the show being a success. It is a question of wiring the 
bones. Give my love to the boys, and to Madame, and to 
Madame mire. 

To the Same. 

May 8, 191 1. 

Your letter has helped me very much. Also your being 
cheerful at breakfast. It was just what I wanted. Yes, it was 

1 Broken out hunting with the Duke of Beaufort's hounds, but most 
successfully plated and restored to me by Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane. — R. 

32 



Germany and Elsewhere 

horribly sudden. I was dancing up to within an hour of 
mother's death ; x it is a sickening thought. One comes out of 
all this teeling for the moment like a whipped cur — full 
of remorse for shortcomings in one's sonship and with all one's 
comfortable groovey life knocked out of its lines. Even the 
fact that mother was ill so long does not seem any adequate 
preparation. Still, there it is — come back soon, and see me. 

1 Lady Ribblesdale died at Wimbledon on May 2nd after a long 
illness, fought out with courage and patience and unselfishness, which 
Charles constantly extolled and recalled. — B. W. C. 



33 



II 

ROMAN LETTERS 

AN APPRECIATION 
By the Rt. Hon. Sir Rennell Rodd, P.C., G.C.V.O. 

AMONG those of the younger generation who have served 
with me, or whom I have had the interest of launching on 
their diplomatic career, there have been few as able and 
more wholly lovable than Charles Lister. I feel sure that 
none of his own contemporaries would grudge him such an 
appreciation, and that all of them would be ready to 
endorse it. 

In the little families which are constituted by our missions 
abroad life is as a rule very intimate, and the members learn 
each other's virtues and failings very quickly. The head of 
the mission is the father of his family and relations are 
almost always very cordial. He has exceptional opportunities 
of studying the character of his staff, which forms a small 
group isolated in alien surroundings. This is particularly 
the case in the Embassy at Rome, where the summer life at 
Posillipo is one of constant camaraderie. I feel therefore 
that I am qualified to speak with due knowledge of a very 
dear friend. 

Charles Lister joined my staff in the spring of 191 1. He 
was the son of old friends and the nephew of a colleague 
and almost a contemporary, to whom I had always been 
greatly attached. I remember making rhymes and pictures 

34 



Roman Letters 

for his elder brother, who also gave his life for his country, 
in the grim Somali wastes. He came, moreover, from my 
old college at Oxford, and there is no stronger link than 
that which unites Balliol men all the world over. He was 
therefore at once adopted into the family, and we made his 
more complete acquaintance on a short yachting cruise from 
Leghorn to Naples in the opening of the radiant Italian 
summer, visiting Elba and one or two of the islands on the 
way south. In the Villa Rosebery at Posillipo, near Naples, 
thanks to the generosity of the giver whose name it com- 
memorates, the summer quarters of the Embassy are estab- 
lished. The Secretaries' house stands on the wall rising straight 
up from the sea above a little landing pier for bathers, 
and there the children who are in or on the water all day 
long at once made him their own. The verdict of children 
and their intuitive perception of character is quick and un- 
erring. There was not a moment's shyness on either side. 
The fine open face, the kindly voice, the unflinching honest 
eyes and the warm-hearted humorous smile made them at 
home with him at once. One little boy, then seven or eight, 
always endeavoured to sit next to him at meals, and their 
conversation ranged over the strangest and most abstruse 
subjects. Peter propounded unanswerable problems, and 
Charles considered them with the gravity of an affair of state, 
discussing them with professional earnestness and inexhaus- 
tible good humour. It was good to listen to them. Mister 
Lister was soon quoted as an oracle. Those children have 
seen many members of the staff come and go and retain 
their friends in affectionate memory. Certainly there is 
no one of them all more fondly remembered. When I 
asked Peter if he was not distressed to have lost his old 
friend — it was more than two years since he had left us 
— he said truthfully, with a retrospective smile, " He was a 
real nice fellow — he was always asking my advice and 
taking his." 

Charles Lister displayed two characteristics which are 
but rarely found in combination — the spirit of the sportsman 

35 



Charles Lister 

and the lover of adventure with the instincts of the scholar 
gentleman. He was of the type which would have found its 
right environment in the large-horizoned Elizabethan days, 
and he would have been of the company of Sidney and 
Raleigh and the Gilberts and boisterously welcomed at the 
Mermaid Tavern. He would sometimes pretend that he 
was divided in his mind whether the life of the fox-hunter 
or that of the college don would have most tempted him if 
he had only had to follow his instincts. But in reality he was 
much too deeply imbued with the sense of duty and the 
higher obligations of life to have devoted himself to the former 
to the exclusion of graver things. He was, however, seriously 
drawn towards the student's life and was a deep and thoughtful 
reader with a very retentive memory. No doubt he was 
also a hard and fearless rider, without the graces of the 
natural horseman, and here in the Roman Campagna with its 
long deceptive reaches of grass and its sudden and unexpected 
obstacles his impetuosity often alarmed his friends. But there, 
as in the sea in the bay of Naples, where currents ran strong 
and seas were high, as afterwards in the deadly battle area of 
Gallipoli, he was physically the most fearless of men. In 
the more difficult tests of moral courage I have known no 
braver soul. 

At college and after college he had strong Socialistic lean- 
ings, and I do not think he ever discarded the appreciation of 
human destiny which his generous heart inspired. He only 
outgrew the atmosphere of the exponents of the Socialistic 
creed with whom he had at one time associated, the limitations 
and even prejudices which he felt had become as fetters to 
them, and ended by believing them to be not very practical 
people. A young man, said the late King Oscar of Sweden, 
who has not been a Socialist before he is five-and-twenty 
shows that he has no heart, a young man who remains one 
after five-and-twenty shows that he has no head. It is high 
testimony to his lovable character that at the time when he 
was identifying himself with the extremer votaries of Socialistic 
propaganda he made no enemies among the most reactionary 

36 



Roman Letters 

of his contemporaries, who never resented his earnest opinions 
and always recognized as his due the aqua potestas quodlibet 
audendi. 

Whatever he undertook he endeavoured to master. And 
so when he entered the Diplomatic Service he quickly became 
absorbed in his profession, and at that early age, when other 
interests are crowding in, he quickly acquired a perception and 
a grasp of foreign questions. Here in Italy he at once endeav- 
oured to get into touch with the more serious as well as the 
social elements, and showed an ambition to be familiar with all 
the many facets of life. I have no doubt he would have been 
a very successful diplomatist had he lived, though he might 
not have appeared to be specially adapted for the profession. 
But he had a strong power of sympathy and a capacity for 
seeing things with the eyes of others, and he was conspicuously 
free from prejudices and preconceptions. His temperament 
was not, I think, so much creative and imaginative as reflective. 
He never shirked thinking a question out, and he thought for 
himself, not in grooves and under the limitations of convention; 
thus arriving at conclusions which were essentially his own and 
had the force which is conferred by sincerity. He not unfre- 
quently revised them, and was always the first to admit a 
mistaken appreciation which maturer experience had enabled 
him to correct. He was, moreover, most scrupulously con- 
scientious in his conception of his duties, even in carrying out 
the duller and more mechanical ones. Most of us have had 
the experience in our earlier posts of the brilliant young col- 
league who could work with admirable application at what 
interested him personally, and in the lines where merit is 
acquired, but who was disposed to leave the routine and the 
orderly working of the official machine to others. Charles 
Lister was brilliant and capable, but he gave the same devotion 
to the lesser as to the greater things. He even made a stren- 
uous but unavailing effort as an attach^ to overcome a certain 
constitutional disability of harmonious movement, and master 
the accomplishments of the ball-room. His sense of humour 
was keen but always kindly, though he could be roused to 

37 



Charles Lister 

generous indignation, and his enjoyment of life in all its phases 
was intense. 

After some two years of continuous service he became 
entitled to a long leave of absence, and devoted it to a visit 
to India. On his return he was appointed to Constantinople, 
to the sincere regret of his many friends in Rome, and especially 
of myself. 

On the outbreak of war he volunteered for active service, to 
the great loss of the Civil Service, for men of his ability and 
sense of duty are rare, and can ill be spared. But it was 
characteristic of his generous and adventurous spirit, and he 
took his chance of sacrificing a brilliant career. His example 
would have been followed or anticipated by nearly all the 
younger members of the service, but authoritative steps were 
taken to prevent them from volunteering. Alas ! he found the 
means. 

The toll of the Dardanelles has been a very heavy one, but 
of all the gallant souls who gave their lives in a forlorn hope on 
the disastrous shores of the Thracian Chersonese none died 
more deeply regretted, none sacrificed a fairer promise. As I 
myself draw nearer to the close of a long career abroad, with its 
numberless vicissitudes, friendships, acquaintances, and reflect 
on my many experiences, I realize that our two years of asso- 
ciation in the Embassy at Rome have left me with a singularly 
bright memory of one of the largest natures and warmest hearts 
I have ever known. Of all the sorrows and the infamies which 
those who are responsible for these disastrous years have 
brought upon us, few have touched me personally with such 
bitterness of resentment as the loss of this most gallant soul 
and honourable gentleman, cut off in the flower of his days, who 
made the holy sacrifice to his country and the cause he felt 
so deeply. 

Rome, 

March iqi6. 



38 



Roman Letters 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

British Embassy, Rome, 1 

August 17, 191 1. 

My life here is all it should be — just enough work to make 
one feel one is not a cumberer of the ground, pleasant 
colleagues, and a nice chief, full of go and interest. The 
" boys " ? I feel very old ; they are, of course, older than me. 
I long for one of you. I hope the diplomats are jolly in your 
year. I think one appreciates one's past much more if 
removed for some little time. I like my colleagues most 
awfully, though they can't in the nature of things come up 
to the old times. They don't smile as much, or argue as loud, 
or make as many loose jokes, or rejoice in simple innocent 
pleasure like the old Balliolic Satyrs and Fauns. But one is 
melancholy on paper, and I am really radiantly happy out 
here. Just back from a wonderful yachting trip in the 
Ambassador's yacht. This week we go to Naples, though I 
feel anxious as to the prospect of too much sea-bathing, a 
form of amusement to which I have never been very partial. 

I am much excited by Frazer's " Golden Bough " — magic, 
and that sort of thing — you must read it as soon as you've 
a moment's time. And I am looking about for some sort of 
outside subject to take up, and do some decent work on. It 
is vital, as one's brain is bound to go, in this kind of hack- 
work, which I don't think adds to the brain, though it sharpens 
the wits in just the way I want them sharpened. The 
efficiency of the Service appals me. I don't know where to 

1 The Roman letters are full of gossip, and an Editor consequently 
finds himself up against a host of living and justifiable susceptibilities. 
Besides many of the names of the illustrious Romans involved are more or 
less illegible or undefined. Mistakes in names or styles are always to be 
condemned. Further, some of all this refers to agreeable acquaintances 
I made when at Rome myself, and one or two are noted duellists. But, 
on the other hand, Charles's letters are so much himself that I have let 
some of the gossipy bits stand and have resorted to the paltry expedient 
of misleading initials as a way out of if not over a Pontine marsh of 
perplexity. — R. 

39 



L,naries Lister 

turn, so many things here and in my books interest me so 
much. The hunting here will be first rate, great expanses of 
grass country, high timber, and little walls, and nailing hire- 
lings. I am looking forward to it. I wish you were here ; 
you'd love it, and do it much better than me. 



To the Same. 

Villa Rosebery, Naples, 

August 25, 1911. 

Many thanks for your capital letter. I have always thought 
the Veto Bill a " politicians' " question, and I expect a good 
many other people think so too, now it has been dwarfed by 
Morocco and the strikes. I can't say I feel very happy about 
either of these last. The French Government is clearly very 
nervous, and the unfortunate Prefet de la Seine must be 
sweating with fear. I think they will be kept straight by 
French public opinion. The German game seems to be to 
wait for something to turn up — and it did to some extent in 
the shape of our Labour troubles, which I see The Times 
connects with the reluctance of the Germans to come to any 
terms, and to give German public opinion — roused to ex- 
travagant hopes by the opening moves of Wilhelm — time to 
subside, so as to permit said Wilhelm to climb down from 
his high horse with comparative safety. Unless he is prepared 
to face a war, he is bound to come out of the negotiations 
with rather less of a triumph than was expected by the 
pan-Germanic Press. 

The Labour situation is appalling. I feel the Labour 
grievance as strongly as ever, but I've lost faith in most 
remedies I used to believe in. If only they could get 
back to the old sober trade unionism, and to collective 
bargaining on sane lines. But a change of spirit in most of 
the T.U.'s is required before this is achieved. They are 
shockingly out of hand — except the miners and the great cotton 
trade organizations. 
40 



Roman Letters 

How horrible Civil Service logic sounds ! I'm glad I didn't 
take it up. I thought of doing so at one time. Bunt Goschen, 
I hear, has contrived to escape Burlington House again. Did 
he hurt himself falling out of his balloon ? How you would 
laugh at our bridge games here. ... I do play badly ! 
Auction bridge — the only sufferable card game. I am assured, 
however, that I am getting better. 



To the Same. 

Villa Rosebery, Naples, 

August 31, 1911. 

My colleagues are appreciative, and I'm very fond of them; 
but their vitality is at times rather low. Of course I've always 
been used to living with tremendously vital people, who all 
talk at once, and they are a little different from that class. I 
find I like sea-bathing much better than I thought, albeit I'm 
a very slow swimmer. The water here is marvellous, and keeps 
you up like a cork. I bathe twice a day with the children. I 
am ducked by the children and by the eldest girl, a great dear 
twelve years old, but the recent arrival of the naval attach^ 
has distracted attention from myself, and he, poor man, spends 
most of his time under water. 

The museum in Naples, as Baedeker puts it, " repays inspec- 
tion." I went over with the Ambassador, and was thus only 
able to cast a roving eye all round it. I was slightly compen- 
sated by a visit to the aquarium, where we gazed on the 
octopuses for about half an hour. They have all the grace 
of skirt-dancers, and wicked little eyes like the devil. Watch- 
ing them is almost a vice in itself. 

We live here en famille, and have lunch with the children. 
The youngest lately had his sixth birthday. He was informed 
by Lady R. that he couldn't really be six, as he was still unable 
to swim or read He was then informed by his little sister that 
he had no ambition. I think this a very false method. Lady R. 
has very different views from mine. But I am a great exponent 

41 



Charles Lister 

of the doctrine of Divine Economy, and do not quarrel when I 
have no chance to convert. Well, good-bye my dear Tommy ; 
mind you serve the examiners as they deserve. 



To the Same. 

Rome, 

September 13, 191 1. 

I am glad you liked the Gisburne life, which sounds ideal. 
It is a good place, if only the shooting was better. How cruel 
to put Pat on the Boer pony ! But he has not written to me, so 
it serves him right. 

Morocco is bloody, however it turns out. We have saved our 
bacon — but the French ? The Germans will get a damned sight 
more than they ought to have, without fighting, so Lord knows 
why they should be bellicose. 

We shall be very soon leaving this place, which is sad. I've 
enjoyed it very much on the whole, and am very fond of the 
Ambassador and Lady Rodd. The Italian butler ought to 
spend a month or so at Oxford and learn how champagne 
should be handled — otherwise I've no cause for complaint. 

They are having, possibly, an inter-Parliamentary conference 
at Rome in October, and Macaulay will be on us. It may be 
put off because of the cholera. Funny time to have confer- 
ences ; in this season of distrust all round. I wonder what they 
will say. I am sure there was much more European solidarity in 
the twelfth century than there is to-day, for all their conferences 
and talkey-talkey shows. I hope you will get out here some- 
time before I leave, you will have two years, nearly, to do it in, 
as I don't so much as get home till October year at earliest. 
This isn't a bad plan, as one gets used to long spells abroad 
straight off. I have seen a dispatch from Bones l — only think 
— about the Registration of Domestic Servants at St. Paul 

1 R. T. Smallbones, of Trinity. On one occasion the Proctor would 
not believe that his name was authentic until it was spelt out for him 
over and over again. — R. 

42 



Roman Letters 

Loanda. He is now in charge. No more for the present. 
This is a poor letter in comparison with your purple emperor 
of a letter. Write to me about your Scotland, and give 
my love to George Vernon. 

I have a piece of news for you. Cyril Bailey is going to be 
married to Miss Creighton, the daughter of the Bishop. 



To the Same. 

Rome, 

October i, 191 1. 

It is the very devil you're having been defeated by 
Burlington House, and I am indeed sorry, as I had hoped 
to have a friend in high places, whilst I was eating out my 
heart at Caracas, and longing to be sent to Christiania, to 
end my days in a clime where my flesh would not rot away 
so soon. I am sorry — it must be so — for you, and the feeling 
that our labours have been in vain is always a bitter one. 
Still, a vacancy may turn up, so there is still hope. And 
the divers platitudes about the value of honest effort has 
no salving power in connection with an examination. Still, 
I don't know that you'd have liked the quill-driving life at 
the F.O. much, and I think I can say quite honestly that 
there is the " well out of it " aspect. 

Riding about in the Campagna is the best thing about 
this place. The atmosphere is full of excitement, and I am 
thrilled by the thought of being in a country at war. Public 
opinion here is very confident, and on the whole in favour 
of the war. I should feel sorrier for the Turks if their 
conduct generally had been more deserving of sympathy, 
and if they had shown themselves more accommodating, in 
particular to ourselves, less so to certain other gentlemen. I 
don't think the Italians will definitely annex. They will 
establish themselves in the same way that we are established 
in Egypt. 

43 



unaries Lister 

To Edward Speyer. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

September 21, 191 1. 

We live here in the middle of rumours of wars. I write 
with no special knowledge, but I suppose we have to some 
extent saved our face over the Morocco business. But in 
any case I fear the German coup will be successful to the 
extent of adding to German territory and causing grave 
anxiety to be felt for the future of our Central African 
possessions, now that Germany has got to the Congo River, 
and that she will insist on a say in the future of what was 
once King Leopold's happy hunting-ground. The French, 
by the time they have rounded-off their African posses- 
sions, will have paid a very fair instalment of blackmail. I 
say "instalment," because I fear recent events will encourage 
a repetition of Agadir tactics. Still — this is all rather 
depressing. 

Rome is a charming place, though I have not been there 
much lately, as the Embassy summers near Naples in 
Lord Rosebery's villa, where we have had a pleasant lotus- 
eating two months or so with talking, reading, and a little 
quiet Chancery work now and then. Italy is supposed to 
have sinister designs on Tripoli, but otherwise little disturbs 
our peace. 

To Ferdinand Speyer. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

April 14, 1912. 1 

Many thanks for your most interesting letter. I don't, of 
course, see how we could have acted otherwise than we did 

1 There is a gap in the correspondence from Rome. This is due partly 
to the difficulty of getting hold of Charles's letters to friends who are now 
serving at the Front, partly to the fact that Charles was devoting much 
of his time to the study of Anthropology, Ancient Religions, Fetish 
Worship, Magic, and their kindred subjects. Further, in October 191 1 
Charles was at home. — R, 

44 



Roman Letters 

in Morocco. We were bound to be in the French diplomatic 
camp by the terms of the Entente, and we were bound to 
prevent Germany getting a part of the Atlantic seaboard. 
Also, as a matter of principle, I think it is undesirable that the 
Germans should make the French pay twice for what they had 
already obtained under the 1909 agreement. It is quite true 
that the French behave abominably as far as the commercial 
interests of other nations in their possessions are concerned. 
They have no notion of an open-door policy ; and I dare say 
in this matter the German intervention had happy results. I 
quite agree the F.O. should be more up to date in commercial 
matters, but financiers have very often been indifferent coun- 
sellors, and men like and the other big people who have 

really a chance of getting the ear of the Secretary of State, take 
a very denationalized point of view, and ignore the political 
aspect of questions, such as the Bagdad Railway. But I have 
never been a believer in Parliament, and certainly Parliamentary 
control would not help the F.O. to a more intelligent attitude 
in commercial matters. Your Parliamentary expert in Foreign 
Affairs is either a sentimentalist of the Philip Morrell-Arthur 
Ponsonby type, or a wiseacre who thinks he knows all there is 
to be known because he has been two years honorary attache at 
Constantinople. The latter is, if anything, the greater danger. 
In both cases there is blissful ignorance of commerce. Under 
pressure of public opinion and the Board of Trade, certain 
hybrids called commercial attaches were appointed. Ours has 
a pretty wife, and times his arrivals and departures so as to fit 
in with the principal golf competitions on the Roman links. 
I should suggest some compulsory subject in the examinations 
in banking, finance, and trade, but probably some Hawkins 
would come along and put it all into a book in the form most 
easily learnt and most easily forgotten, and little would come of 
it. The Commercial Department of the F.O. is simply a post 
office between the Board of Trade and representatives abroad. 
I don't think it very educative. So it is difficult to know what 
to do. 

It is remarkable that the coal strike passed off quietly and 

:45 



Charles Lister 

was so little felt. It hardly seems to have made people think 
enough. I remember we used to say what a good thing it 
would be if people did think. I'm not sure about that now — 
most people's thoughts as to remedies are not worth very much. 

I am at present very sceptical ; I don't see any hope in 
Socialistic legislation or in the Socialist vision as a whole. Yet 
I am quite conscious of the force of the destructive criticism 
Socialists have levelled against present-day society, and find it 
difficult to take up a conservative position, as from the point of 
view of most people there is precious little worth preserving. 
I remember in the old days we used to say that if you had 
organized capital on one side and organized labour on the other 
side, sufficiently strong to be afraid of each other, we should have 
no strikes. This was one of the more " respectable " arguments 
advanced at Oxford C.S.U. meetings to convince the more 
stodgy members that trade unions were not unlike branches 
of the Y.M.C.A. But certainly in the case of the coal strike 
the opposite has occurred. Of course Syndicalism is the in- 
evitable result of the failure of the Parliamentary party ; in a 
way it is a good thing that the work-people are having their 
minds turned away from hopes of grandmotherly legislation to 
a good hearty wages movement, though the Syndicalist way 
of " the sewers for the sewermen " is kindisch. 

I love Rome and am happy here in a quiet way. Many 
interesting people in nearly all lines of life, save politics ; it is 
difficult to meet politicians. But of course a rather lotus-eating 
post as far as work goes. 

To the Same. 

Rome, 
April 30, 1912. 

It is true, I fear, that I have been remiss in correspondence. 
The flesh is pretty weak out here. My father has been 
here, also Viola Tree has been in Rome, and we had the jolliest 
of times together. Viola was very jolly and in great looks and 
spirits — a very good woman. Patrick has been here too. I 



Roman Letters 

imagine he is quite keen about his City work, which, while 
it hardly sounds enlivening, is just as enlivening as most things 
of that sort. I suppose everybody is bored with their professions 
at the earlier stages — perhaps more so those in official employ- 
ment — and one must just recognize the fact. I am very happy 
here, and prevent myself running intellectually to seed by 
stiffish reading, though this is interfered with by social 
activities. The right policy here is to make a few friends and 
specialize in them ; and these friends, once made, never to go 
out and make useless acquaintances. I fancy one would always 
enjoy one's second year more than the first, as one has no circle 
and is always nervous with people, fearing either to love or 
be loved. 

To Edward Speyer. 

GlSBURNE, 

December 29, 1912.* 

Much water has flowed under the bridges since I got your 
last letter, and I must admit that I was perhaps a little hard 
on the German Government in our previous correspondence. 
Germany has certainly exercised a sound influence during 
recent Balkan events. I wonder what the betting on peace 
is ? I have lately seen a member of The Times staff fresh 
from London — I've been a country mouse since my return 
and hunting all the time — and he seemed to be rather hopeful. 
I should be happy if the Austrians stopped moving troops 
about and sabre rattling. I take it the Austro-Serbe difficulty 
is more or less settled. Berchtold is supposed to be an in- 
different performer — un dilettante elegante he was called by 
the Italian Foreign Office authorities after his recent visit to 

1 The autumn of this year, 19 12, was marked by a loss which Charles 
felt very keenly : Sir Reginald Lister, his uncle, died at Tangiers of 
malarial fever while serving there as H.M. Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary. He had been His Majesty's Minister Pleni- 
potentiary at Paris from 1905 until 1908, when he had been transferred 
to Tangiers. He died when Charles had been only fifteen months in 
the service.— B. W. C. 

:47 



Charles Lister 

Italy. The Italians must be thankful they haven't been 
made to toe the line by Austria to the extent of going to war. 
And this might have happened — even looked like it when 
I was last at Rome. Such a war would have been frightfully 
unpopular in Italy — impossible, I think. I'm sorry to have 
missed Ferdi this time, but shall make a point of seeing 
him in London. 

With best wishes for the New Year. 



To Mrs. Edward Speyer. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

February 12, 1913. 

I wish I hadn't had to leave England so soon owing to 
my sudden change of plans. But one must be ruthless about 
going to India. 1 must say the February weather here is 
marvellous — dry and sunny but rather cold. The golf here 
is very good just now, and we play on a wonderful links within 
sight of the Via Appia and the aqueducts. There is a good 
deal of va et vient this year, which there wasn't last, owing 
to the war. I went to the opera last night — " Isabeau," the 
new Mascagni opera. I personally did not care for it. The 
music is not melodious and pleasant like the old Italian opera 

neither is it atmospheric, dramatic, extravagant, or any of 

the things modern opera is. It is very laboured and Operosa 
and the duets are hectic beyond words. It was well given 
on the whole, with a young Canadian tenor. Mascagni 
oughtn't to try for ponderous efforts. But opera is largely 
a question of mood, and I dare say I wasn't in a suitable frame 
of mind. I am to be the Indian Bacchus at a fancy dress 
ball on February 27th at the Embassy mi-careme night — 
and am much exercised about my tights and my other 
appurtenances. Tights apparently take ages to make, but I 
must hide a large stretch of bare legs between the end of 
my tunic and my leopard-skin buskins. 



Roman Letters 

To Mrs. Warre Cornish. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

April 20, 1913. 

Many thanks for your charming description of the wedding 
at St. Margaret's. 1 It was a kind thought of yours to write 
to me. We shall be a very small family now, just me and 
father. This is rather a sad thought, as we always have so 
much fun together, and after one has passed one's collegiate 
stages, where friends are very much to hand, one begins to 
feel there aren't too many in the world and to value one's 
family more as a social centre. 

Here we are just past the season, and all of us rather tired of 
the festivities to which we have been subjected. Roman society 
is small, and one meets the same people ever so many times, yet 
without that consciousness in many cases of getting " forrarder." 
Still they are nice here. The Italians are certainly the most 
naturally intelligent people of Europe. I don't think a stupid 
Italian exists. They will always know, and are put to miser- 
able subterfuges at times to hide their ignorance. But this, 
like their other faults, is a fault inherent in extreme youth, 
and they certainly are great babies — especially the "smart" 
ones — and with all the freshness and charm of babyhood. 
Gossip about one's friends is one of the main forms of con- 
versation, but it is not ill-natured, as no one attaches any 
importance to it and it is very amusing. There is never 
what one finds so often in England, the phenomenon of people 
trying to talk about things they know nothing about, and 
putting up hares which they can't follow. Altogether the 
Italians, especially the Naples and Sicily people, are very 
charming, friendly, and agreeable persons. They are kindness 
itself to foreigners. 

Lady Rodd has a passion for organization, and has been 
making our lives rather hectic by giving a fancy ball of a 
very elaborate and historic character. Many of the Romans 

1 This refers to Percy Wyndham's and Diana Lister's wedding at 
St. Margaret's. — R. 



E 



49 



Charles Lister 

appeared as their ancestors, and looked really marvellous in 
Cinquecento dress, which is the costume Italians ought always 
to wear. The poor Secretaries were all turned out as Greek 
gods and heroes, and looked rather silly and theatrical. I 
was the bearded Dionysus. Later we had all to figure in 
a theatre for a charity. 

We are all glad to be gods no more. 

You will be glad to hear I play golf now — unlike Arthur 
Benson ! No time for more. Write to me again, dear Mrs. 
Cornish. It gives me great pleasure. I will be home in 
November and come and see you. My love to the Vice- 
Provost and Mrs. Desmond MacCarthy. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

June 6, 1913. 

I am off this afternoon to Caprarola to stay the night with 
Mrs. Baldwin and fille who is now there. I then go on to Diana 
Manners and then to Reggio, where Tyrwhitt is staying with 
the Pansas. We go to Naples on the 20th. The Ambassador 
has at last got off on his yacht, and will be with us again about 
the end of the month. 

Rome has been pretty quiet lately. I have been seeing the 
usual sort of people. Princess Teano is shortly going to 
London, and told me she would write to you. She was quite 
en beaute and sunburnt from the country. The Casatis have, I 
think, been at Venice. I never got to Lady Helen after all, but 
it really couldn't be helped. The R.'s are, I believe, reunited by 
the kind offices of Percy Drexel, and the R.'s house will next 
winter be a monument of respectability and a veritable temple 
of Vesta for the chaste virgins of Rome. The old Princess R. 
has succeeded in marrying off her youngest daughter to a 
Marcheggiano nobleman of some wealth, but obscure and pro- 
vincial. R. pere at the time when he announced this piece of 
good luck to his friends did not know the young man's Christian 

50 



Roman Letters 

name. It is said that the A.'s are separating, also the B.'s — the 
latter with better reason. I fancy A. can't do without his wife's 
dot, and as a liquidation of the dot is a corollary of separa- 
tion, I should think the house will be kept together. The B.'s, I 
fancy, are in a different case, as he was pretty rich always. P. 
when they married took little notice of his wife, and unhappily 
fell in love with her some six years later, by which time she had 
made a life of her own. She would not modify her way of 
living for him, retorting that he hadn't cared for her when they 
began their menage. Separations seem more common than 
fianqailles. Mrs. Granet has been in very good form lately, 
and expressed the view that the Italians did not understand boy 
and girl flirtations. I meant to ride to Caprarola this morning, 
but Mrs. Baldwin has sent over her motor for me, so I suppose 
I must take it. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

July 26, 1913. 

I wonder how you're keeping and what your August plans 
are. We go on with our pleasant patriarchal life here and our 
simple pleasures. Invicta continues to grapple bravely with 
the arts, and to wear out her old picture hats with ostrich 
feathers in this haven of rest. X. is disturbed about the Turks 
behaviour and makes periodical darts back to Rome, which are 
never very productive of information. But I suppose embassies 
must be rather agitated at times. The papers say shares are 
going up, which looks more hopeful ; but I am afraid that we 
shan't have peace just yet as the Austrians will encourage the 
Bulgarians to resist the terms demanded by the Greeks and 
Serbs. Austria has been the sort of bbser geist over the whole 
thing, and it is her we have to thank for most of this slaughter. 
Still, it looks as if we were all rather fed up with fighting just 
now — though I should personally be bored with a return to the 
quiet life. . . . 

Rome must be uncommonly dull if there is not some crisis on 

51 



Charles Lister 

and a real dead-and-alive post. Almost ever since I've been 
here there has been a crisis of some sort going on in which we 
are more or less interested. 

To the Same. 

POSILLIPO, 

August 2, 1913. 

Many thanks for your capital letter. ... I wonder how you'll 
like Dutch country life — I suppose there is some golf near the 
Hague. When I was there with you it looked as if the country- 
side was entirely devoted to tulips and dykes. The worthy 
Michiels is here now, flushed like the rosy-fingered dawn, 
courteous and at home. I don't know why the K.'s don't 
appreciate him. He is really very sympathetic. I don't think 
I shall ever go to the Hague en poste. I like the bloodthirsty 
Near East, where there are always stirring times. Our life 
here goes on very calmly with more sun, dry weather, and the 
pleasant prospect of a descent in force of the Stuart- Wortley 
family, viewed with mixed feelings by the Rodd children who 
have a healthy suspicion of their aunts and cousins. I have 
been anx abois lately with my inside, and have for the moment 
suspended peaches and other delights. But I fancy things 
will again soon be on a normal basis — like the City, though I 
am afraid this will take longer. Barbara says it's " worse than 
ever," but the papers here report improvement. I don't feel 
very hopeful at the present moment. Still, the worst feared has 
so often come off that it seems almost time for the luck to 

change. I'm not sorry has had a knock ! Generally it is 

only the Christian supporters of the Jesuit protagonists who get 
the knock. I am reading Ariosto now — a very underrated writer 
who, I believe, was much admired by Byron. It is cheerful, 
fluent, skilfully written stuff, with an extraordinary gay and 
cheerfully cynical note running through it, and sometimes up 
to great heights. His improper cantos are especially satisfying. 
Scatters [Sir M. Wilson] has very handsomely offered me his 
rifles for my Indian campaign, which will be very satisfactory. 



Roman Letters 

It might be worth considering buying one, as diplomats get 
a good deal of rifle-shooting in certain posts : — not so much 
as they used to, I fear, owing to the increase of work. The 
new colleagues, a jeune menage, are very agreeable, easy-going 
people, and quite cheer us up. The worthy Osborne, who 

saved Viola from the clutches of A after the golf ball last 

year, dislikes America, where he's gone. 



To the Same. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

September 2, 1913. 

Adrianople seems now more or less settled and things seem 
going better in Mexico. Why the Americans burnt their 
fingers so I can't imagine ; their policy seems to have neither 
rhyme nor reason. I'm told the chief reason for their wish to put 
a spoke into the Mexican Government's wheel was the fact that 
the Mexican Eagle Oil Company had had a considerable con- 
cession given to them which the Standard Oil looked on as their 
prescriptive right — hinc illce lachrymce. Bryan is a godless man. 
The Americans go down steadily in manners, morals, decent 
feelings, and political skill, and will soon be Huns like the 
Bulgars without their manly qualities. 

I have now got back to Rome, and the whole establishment 
will be here soon with the exception of Lady Rodd, who will go 
to Corsica in her yacht and come back again to England, a very 
child of brine and sunshine. My time at Rome has been rather 
strenuous, as I had to wrestle with a long series of queries 
about the Italian Parliament which our ninnies in the House of 
Commons want to know about — down to what coloured socks 
Italian deputies wear. Still, I like work, and should be dull 
without it. I saw Irene Lawley on her way through from 
Naples, where she had been with Lady R., and she spoke hand- 
somely of you. Rome is otherwise rather dull and quiet, just a 
few colleagues. I go to the cinematographs with the Greek 
Charge d'Affaires and the black Belgian and white Dutchman 

r 53 



Charles Lister 

and Michiels. The latter, Michiels, is a great standby and a 
dear friendly fellow. I don't know what we should do without 
him. 

You will be glad to hear our friend Pefia has had a windfall — 
his mother dying. I don't know why you should be glad about 
that ; but still ! he has now about £100,000 a year. He has 
gone back to the Argentine and abandoned European amours, 
which, I think, shocked him profoundly. As you know, he was 
always urging Z. to return to her sposo. I saw sposo in the 
Grand Hotel, just off to shoot pheasants. He is standing for 
Parliament and may get in, but his tactics seem evasive. He is 
trying to hunt with the hare and run with the hounds, which 
he may be able to do with money. All the illiterates vote at 
the next election ; their name is legion. Were there as many 
drunkards X. would be sure to get in. 



To the Same. 

British Embassy, Rome, 

November 5, 1913. 

News there has been but little here. Just over with our 
elections, which resulted badly on the whole for the Govern- 
ment. Numerous Socialist gains and a good many ben pensanti 
saved by the Clerical vote from defeat. Several of Giolitti's 
betes noires elected and of his trusted lieutenants soundly beat. 
At Naples things went disastrously. A popular obstetrician 
romped in in spite of all the efforts of the authorities for his 
opponent. This latter was a Town Councillor, and when he 
saw things going ill burst into one of the municipal offices 
which were polling booths and collared a few hundreds of his 
opponent's votes. This, however, was of no avail to stave off 
defeat. Here the Moderator got in for the two seats where the 
results were doubtful and went to second ballot. Leone 
Caetani was badly beat. The election was supposed to have 
been corrupt to an unprecedented extent. But I suppose 
bribery makes an advance along the path of constitutional 

54 



Roman Letters 

progress ; before people used to intimidate solely, and bribery 
was never heard of. The Government will probably be a 
broad-bottomed administration — no Giolitti and some members 
of the Right. Giolitti will take a rest for a little while and 
then come back. 

The day before yesterday I went shooting with the worthy 
Mr. Young. We got one or two snipe. My marksmanship 
very defective, but the Italian snipe is not a bird to get the 
out-of-practice shot into form again. He rises very wild 
against brown landscape and flies low, especially if there's no 
wind. The place is lovely — great expanses of flats, rather 
marshy, with a line of dark-coloured scrub ; then sand and 
then sea, and the woods of umbrella pines inland, and a little 
river. We lived the hut life, but very comfortable fare and 
most genial local cacciatori. The day closed with a fox-hunt. 
The fox was chevied about with praiseworthy energy by a 
pack of our dogs, but they couldn't get him up to the guns. 
I saw him several times — a fine, big chap. But they don't 
hunt down that way. The villages and houses are all built on 
sort of rocky excrescences from the soil fringed with ilexes, 
and look very frowning. I am very busy learning Turkish and 
getting on fairly well with the lingo, which is unlike anything 
you ever did before. The letters are fiendishly difficult. I 
have had one or two jolly rides, but the ground is still like a 
rock. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

In Train to Brindisi, 

November 16, 1913. 

Here we are, en route. Thursday evening, after writing to 
you, I dined at the Grand Hotel — whole British Embassy as 
Dering's guests — very impressive and a privilege for the world 
to see us all together, clean, gentlemanly, and restrainedly gay. 
After, who should I meet but old Z. 1 He lunched with me 
Friday. He is a very nice man, and talks a lot about the 

1 This gentleman's family is famous for the evil eye. — R. 

55 



Charles Lister 

morals and manners of the Royal Family, etc., and army 
politics, which are all mildly interesting to me. I think he 
will have a fairly good time here, as he is a friend of the 
Trabbias, and he also knows Serrestoris very well. Oh, he 
did catch his train to Lucca by a miracle — the train was in late 
— obviously delayed by the fact he was going to catch it. A 
perfect example ! Hurried passengers delayed, perhaps, in 
matters of life and death, and the cause of the delay in no way 
inconvenienced ! Altro che. 

. . . And what do you think happened Friday morning? I 
was going out cub-hunting in my most aggressively hunting 
mood ; on the road, for no reason whatever, my horse stumbles 
and breaks both his knees (don't tell any Italian friends). 
But I don't know that next morning counts. 

The boys gave me a kind of farewell dinner at the Caccia, 
which was delightful, and the whole thing was very touching ; 
and I am very fond of them, and I think they will remember 
me. I expect one's first post is the one that leaves most sort 
of social impression on one's mind. I shall never forget the 
agonies of my early struggles here. What I think was of most 
help was a failure with M. M. The first time I met her I talked 
very freely about Italy, etc., just as if it was Oxford and not 
Rome where we were. . . . Her good manners made me think 
I'd had rather a success. However, later I found out I had 
offended seriously. In fact it considerably delayed our friend- 
ship. It did me a great service in making my dull, unsupple 
mind realize that Rome wasn't Balliol. Italians are right to be 
sensitive about their country, and we ought to be more so. I'm 
always rather unduly upset by the gaffes I make ; but I suppose, 
if one has a tendency that way, the only thing is to make an 
effort to cure oneself. So many things come hard to me which 
come easy to other people — such as packing. I now believe 
I've left my golf clubs behind. And think of India without 
golf clubs. 

We are now creeping down the coast of the Adriatic, brilliantly 
blue to Brindisi, with a great feeling of melancholy that I shall 
see nothing of Italy for such a long time. It's all a great plain 
56 



Roman Letters 

covered with vines, and the vine-leaves are turning brown — a 
good colour after the blue of the sea — with an occasional olive 
dotted about. What a country ! I think I rather misspent 
my time in Italy, and didn't travel enough, being so much taken 
up with the hunting. The worst of life is, one can't do every- 
thing at once, and that's what one finds to be very much the 
case everywhere. 



57 



Ill 

INDIAN LETTERS 

Sir Rennell Rodd mentions in his monograph that after two years 
of continual service Charles became entitled to long leave of absence. 
In many ways, I think, he would have liked to come home to hunt and 
shoot — especially hunt — and to renew relations with friends at home ; 
but the call of India and its varied opportunities supervened. Besides, 
Charles always had a lively taste for the universe. 

Most of the letters that follow are written to Miss Lawley. Her father, 
the late Lord Wenlock, was Governor of Madras from 1891 to 1896. Her 
own impressions of India must have belonged to her childhood, but 
Charles's evident pleasure in recording his new experiences was increased 
by Miss Lawley's quick perception of all we associate with the East. — R. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

P. & O. "Osiris," 
Tuesday, November 18, 1913. 

Brindisi was terrific at first. To our horror we were met, 
Mounsey z and I, by a sort of deputation consisting of the British 
Consul, the pro-Consul, and several other notables, and finally 
given lunch. M. had to present to the ex-Consul that afternoon 
a C.M.G. The scene at the station was the more unwelcome 
to me as my luggage had not arrived by the same train but 
missed the coincidenza, and I pictured myself off to the East 
with one nightshirt. I made a scenata terribile, but my style 
was slightly too terrible to be effective. Lunch rather cheered 
me up and fortified us for the ceremony of presenting the 
C.M.G. to the ex-Consul. This took place at the latter's 
house, where all the smart set were gathered headed by the 
local deputy, and the Sotto-prefetto M., a modest young man 

Second Secretary at the Embassy at Rome. — R. 
5S 



Indian Letters 

did not make the most of the occasion, and took the heavily frock- 
coated hero of the hour — our host for the moment — into a corner, 
where he mumbled a few words and handed him two packets. 
This done, " God save the King " was played on the piano. 

We then affixed the C.M.G. to the hero's coat-lapel amidst 
applause. I talked to the local deputy, who was a friend of the 
Frassos and Philipson, to the local deputy's wife, who had had 
the time of her life in London, to the sous-prefet, who knew all 

the ins and outs of S 's liaison, so the time passed pleasantly, 

and when we got back to our hotel — the sort of " Grand " at 
Brindisi — I found my luggage had arrived and that about ten 
British subjects were ready to give me drinks. Before and 
after dinner we were plied with alcohol, and altogether made 
very welcome by the Grand Hotel set. Gambling is the forte 
of the Brindisi jeunesse. They gamble away houses, floor by 
floor. They also have a roller-skating club. How well one 
could live in an Italian ville de province. 

It is a fine harbour, coal stacks abound, black and angular 
against the palm-trees — tres Bakst. White houses with flat 
roofs, quite the East already, and Albanians in the port. These 
last influenced Mounsey to change his plans and go to Albania 
instead of Lecca. 

This boat is clean and comfortable — if small. Getting up is 
hell. No room to put one's things, so one's boxes and bags 
become a sort of bran-pie. Except at meals I am in a state of 
perpetual coma. I have, however, read some of the Italian 
verse book. The Dante lyrics on the death of Beatrice are 
marvellous — heart-wrung, exalted verse, and have all the thrill 
of great mystery about them. I've also read the Carducci 
selection — a grand man ; such guts about him. 

To the Same. 

P. & O. "Egypt," 

November 21, 19 13. 

Here we are well down the Red Sea and due for Aden 
to-morrow. Ship life has on the whole been pleasant. 

59 



Charles Lister 

The great thing is that I have got a cabin to myself. A 
triumph. A man was in occupation when I arrived, but he 
has now cleared out. One sight of me, pale but determined, 
was enough, so I am really very comfortable. 

Then Ned Lutyens is on the boat, who is very jolly and a 
real standby. He is a sort of lesser Harry Cust ; inclined to 
tell stories about his children and to make puns, but he is for 
all that very rollicking and genial. 

I miss a travelling companion on the whole more than I 
would have thought, as I've not the knack of getting on to 
terms with people at first sight. I am wanting in initiative ; 
with a jolly man with me — or with you — it would have been 
fun ; but when alone and timid like me, one don't feel inclined 
to plunge into quite new people, and I shan't be sorry on the 
whole when it's over. Between ourselves I'm afraid I'm getting 
a slight distaste for our race when I see them collectively and 
super-British. Of course knowing them individually, and so on, 
this disappears, and one always gets to like them ; but I don't 
think a crowd of Englishmen together are as genial or sympa- 
thetic as a crowd of Italians, though man for man no doubt 
one would be better friends with them. 

And what did you think of Port Said? What a place for 
unrelieved meanness. Shop after shop of Greeks. I'd a jolly 
native boatman who took me round — fat, black, in a blue 
overall and a green sash, who dealt with all others who offered 
themselves as guides very summarily : " No take him, he 
steal." I was shaved by a Greek, who handled my nose as 
if it was a Bulgarian, and I bought cigarettes from another. 
I don't like them. Maps of Greater Greece on all the walls 
and portraits of the King, etc. 

The canal is marvellous, with its sand and scrub foreground 
and the pink sand-hills in the distance, and the mirages and 
camels at the landing-stages under palms, and houses with flat 
roofs. It compensates for much that has so far been dull. 
But you've no idea with what a weary heart those who've done 
the passage say four to ten times look on the thing. My 
accounts are relatively delirious. Indian service is a stern 
60 



Indian Letters 

business, I must say, and is taken as such by most of them. 
They are charmers [Indian Civil Servants], I must say, but this 
doesn't alter what I said about the crowd. 

I wonder how it will all be when I land ? Mrs. Benson is 
coming out to see Rex, which is a pity, and I shall disembark 
minus rifles owing to Scats' 1 carelessness — still, bless the boy, 
he's lent them me. The shooting tales are thrilling, and one 
wonders how any one comes back alive. Even snipe-shooting 
one is not safe — not that the snipe is violent, even in the 
rutting season ; but many men, on picking up dead snipe 
have been bitten to death by cobras. 

To the Same. 

Bishop's Lodge, 

Malabar Hill, Bombay, 

November 28, 1913. 

Aden is a grim tribute to the perverse energy of man — rocks 
unrelieved by a vestige of green, very sullen and jagged above 
the sand and sea, and dreary little buildings all round the port, 
with wooden frontages, verandahs on the highest stage. Hard- 
bitten, well-yellowed, spare men in topees came on board to see 
their friends. In fact, the general note of severity was unre- 
lieved. One poor man, who was doing the passage for the 
fourteenth time, told me he would sooner be at Perim or Aden 
than at any up-country station in India, because there at least 
you saw the ships passing. The Anglo-Indian is on the whole 
a sad man, and gives one a sense of one's inferiority physically 
and morally. He also expects much. I can't shake off the 
impression made by the Anglo-Indians, civil and military, and 
it depresses me to be such a poor creature. 

You can't think of the thrill of delight one feels at touching 
terra firma again — even if one's morning is spent in rushing 
from hotel to hotel like the Holy Family, and bursting blood- 
vessels in angry arguments with Cook's Babu employees at the 
Bombay Customs. But the harbour's simply vast. I'd no 
1 His brother-in-law, Sir Mathew Wilson. 

61 



Charles Lister 

idea of it. I expected a packed little Oriental port close under 
the city buildings. I shopped, etc., all the morning — the shops 
are marvellous — the shop-streets full of hideous sort of Indo- 
Gothic buildings varied by the verandah and trellis all- 
the-way-up type of house, painted light green, and strikingly 
plain. In the afternoon I drove through the bazaar quarter. 
I must say it surpassed my wildest illusions of colour and 
squalor, with those low little, mostly wooden houses — the room 
opens in front, where you see solemn old men lolling about on 
pillows and mattresses or sitting on their haunches and cross- 
legged, with great hairy chests showing through their cotton 
uppers, and mouths red with betel-nut, and their feet at almost 
Yogi angles, and the shawls of women and the depth of brown 
of the young men's legs, and the brilliance of their turbans. 
Not one smile the whole time did I notice, and no chattering. 
The impression was one of lurid brilliance combined with deep 
and age-long depression. Think what a Naples crowd would 
have been under the circumstances. The women I saw to-day 
were more saturnine and mirky brown than the men, and less 
sympathetic ; but the appeal of the whole thing is not, somehow, 
to sympathy. Then it suddenly occurs to me that we're run- 
ning this show, and the feeling of power makes one giddy. I 
suppose everybody notices these things. 

To the Same. 

Sharanpur, Nasik, 

Western India, 

December 4, 1913. 

The Bishop took me to Elephanta Caves on Saturday after 
I arrived — and his Secretary, a Balliol man, full of the recol- 
lection of past triumphs and trials at the Oxford Union ; 
curiously out of place on the vast waters of Bombay harbour, 
walled in by islands covered with jungle scrub and palms, and 
fringed with mango swamps. 

I expect you've seen the Elephanta Caves. They are cut 
out of solid rock, the cave roof supported by colonnades ot 
pillars with wall carvings at the end of the colonnade, or at the 
62 



Indian Letters 

sides in recesses, of the various scenes of the married life of 
Siva and Parbati — what a thrilling appearance is given to the 
gods, especially in the depths of darkness, by smearing over 
with red ochre. They look like a sort of glowing coals. The 
sculptures are on the grand scale and finely unritual in 
feeling, and spirited, with quite a violence of motion and 
passion like the pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympus. 
The centre piece of the Hindu Trinity is the most massive 
and awe-inspiring sight, and the heavy underlips of the three 
heads on one body, unlike the usual type on this side of the 
country, give the creature a look of gravity which would curb 
the most blasphemous in their sallies. Brahma is rather a 
rotter — degraded from the highest rank for a nameless offence, 
four-headed and always seated in a lotus flower supported by 
four swans. Gunpathi, the elephant god, is my friend. He is 
wisdom and good luck. He is given an elephant head because 
of this story. He was the son of Siva and Parbati, and one 
day saw his mother bathing. His father was so angry that he 
had the lad's head cut off. His mother, however, had no 
objection to being seen bathing and deplored her husband's 
action, and ordered the ladies-in-waiting to run out and cut 
off the head of the first animal they met to put on Gunpathi's 
shorn trunk. As it happened they met an elephant, cut off its 
head, and brought it along. It fitted the headless boy, and ever 
since he has had an elephant's head, the symbol of wisdom. 
If I put down all the stories I hear about Siva and Parbati 
they would take too long to write. Siva is the " nut " here, 
and has beaten Vishnu hollow. He is at once destroyer and 
creator, but in this district suitably married. Elsewhere he is 
associated with the blood-goddess Kali. 

Sunday there was a service in three lingoes in the Cathedral, 
and the hymns were sung at once in English, Mahratti, and 
Hindustani, the sermon being interpreted in those three tongues. 
It was really rather remarkable, and lots of men in church ; and 
women in their bright shawls. I like their beady black pupils 
standing out against the white of the eye, equally brilliant, and 
their dazzling teeth. 

63 



Charles Lister 

Monday I went round the Moslem quarters ; it is the 
Mohurrum week now, and they will soon be in a state of the 
highest emotion and knocking each other's heads about. There 
was great preparation and much praying in the mosques — 
which is done with a dignity and order beyond belief and yet 
spontaneously, and gives no idea of being drilled. I fancy the 
Moslem has more sense of order and decency than the Hindu, 
whose temple is in a disgusting condition as a rule, and who 
has no sense of public worship. He also dots his little shrines 
about anywhere. 

Tuesday I came here (Nasik). This is the second most 
sacred Hindu city in India — after Benares — dedicated to the 
god Rama, who is an incarnation of Vishnu. Here the river 
has been collected into tanks, where the people and pilgrims 
come down to wash in the sacred waters. The temples are not 
of a great age, about two hundred to four hundred years for the 
most part, but grand in setting. The shrines are dedicated 
mostly to Siva. There were holy men in the passage of the 
temple of Rama — one very holy, absolutely sleepy gaga, and 
surrounded by Chelas cooking for him. The less holy and 
more active ones painted their foreheads in reds and whites and 
chattered round us likes apes, asking for money. By the tanks 
of sacred water there are men lying on spikes — not over sharp, 
I must say. They got off to eat, but they didn't look as 
if they thrived on it. Here were also people offering large 
leaves with little fruits on them and little piles of money by 
the side to their ancestors, while the Brahmans read the 
Mantras. 

I went to see a temple built to the child Krishna by one 
of the last rulers of Nasik. This he did out of pique. He 
had intended to build a temple to Rama after attending R.'s 
birthday festival, but he was late for the ceremony and asked 
the god's birthday to be delayed. This the priests said they 
could not do. He therefore transferred the temple he meant to 
build from Rama to Krishna, and punished the god for his 
punctiliousness as to his birthday very properly. The present 
priest is a little boy — hereditary — managed by his mother — 
64 



Indian Letters 

a fat widow, who gave me an offering of paddy and fruit. One 
temple in Nasik is erected to a Babu Civil servant who died 
in 1889. This gentleman, it is said, had squandered much 
of Government's money on the Brahmans, and was rather in a 
hole when the English collector came round to see how things 
were. However, all went well — the Sahib found all the money 
as it should be, and where it should be. For the gods had 
replaced all that had been squandered, ready for inspection. 
My guide and informant was a native parson— padre they 
are called — and knew all these priests. 

What is striking is the fact that dress, cleanliness, etc., are 
no indication to a man's standing. The Brahmans of the 
highest kind are filthy, and wear baggy cottons like any one 
else. Their hair is all that's distinctive, and that's stuffed 
under a cap or a turban. It is very perplexing, this in- 
difference in things material compared with our top-hat 
standards and mental habit of closely connecting rank and 
wealth. 

Little bits of history which crop up are thrilling ; one of the 
temples has a Christian bell — to wake up the god, who is a 
sleepy cuss — taken from the Portuguese by the Moguls and 
from them by the Mahrattas. Nasik was their sacred capital. 



To the Same. 

Hotgi Station, 

December 11, 1913. 

My last was after my first day at Nasik. The second started 
with a drive out to caves — Buddhist, but then adapted by 
Hindus, and after the Buddhist movement reabsorbed into 
Hinduism — covered with rather rough sculptures of the Buddha 
in meditation. My host was an inefficient guide — it was 
difficult to make out where the Buddhist stopped and the later 
sculptures began. These caves are a great height up, so one 
always gets a grand view. In this case it was of glorious ghats, 
sheer and clean cut on one side and of rolling plain running into 

F 65 



Charles Lister 

ghats on the other, with alternate stretches of brown and green 
and trees in the folds and dips of the ground. 

After breakfast my native padre took me in charge. We 
first went into the Mohammedan quarter of Nasik, which is 
squalid, as the Nasik Mohammedans are poor and in a 
minority. We visited Saints' tombs — one of a worthy gentle- 
man who drank milk all his life ; cows are taken to his tomb 
and their yield of milk is thereby much increased. This should 
interest you as an agriculturist. We then went to call on a 
Brahman and family ; in a small way but a fairly large house 
for Nasik — cow-dunged floors, and carpets and cushions against 
the wall to sit back against. My padre took off his socks and 
I inadvertently looked at his feet ; he at once spotted this 
and said, " We generally take off our socks in the house." 
I felt I'd been rude, so hastily put him in the wrong by 
beginning to take off mine. He was all apologies at once. 
After a nearly interminable wait I was brought a Hindoo 
meal. Plantain leaf for plates, with little masses of chutney 
stuff and heavy, sickly sweets, some the shape of potatoes, 
others like indifferent pastry in shape, neatly arranged for me ; 
everything tasted very hot or very sweet. My padre wolfed 
it all in ten minutes. I fear I made a poor show. I closed with 
betel nut wrapped up in leaves, which I crunched like a hero, 
without turning a hair. The Brahman was most amiable and 
the children darlings — the women waited on me but were silent. 

The " spot " sight at Ahmednagar is the tomb of Chand 
Aibi — an Ahmednagar princess who married the King of 
Ajapore. On her husband's death she came back to Ahmed- 
nagar and became queen and mistress of a soldier, and died 
defending her city in its last struggles against the Moguls. 
The tomb is a fine monument, high up, commanding an 
immense view. She and her lover sleep inside the building 
— outside are two graves, a large one of her dog, and a 
small one of the legal wife of her lover ; so the home is 
once more solid in death. The tomb is finely vaulted, but 
of that brown Deccan stone which is a bad colour, rather 
like the stone of which the Midland built their tunnels. 
66 



Indian Letters 

At the foot of the hill we met some Lamani — once the 
carriers of India. The women wear a gorgeous dress they 
are given at their marriage and never change. Ordinary 
sari stuff with gold and lots of glass sewn in, and ponderous 
armelets and anklets — jolly wild-looking people like gipsies. 
Ahmednagar was one of the Deccan Mussulman kingdoms, 
but the Moguls have left practically nothing except the fort. 

Then to Poona, where I stayed with the chief of the 
Staff — a charming man called Colonel Gamble. I met a 
wonderful old Cowley Father, who lives in a village near, 
where he has an orphan school and where he has built a 
large church, though there is not a single Christian in the 
village. All the years he has been there he has not made 
a single convert, and his only congregation are these orphan 
boys ; yet he is quite positive the whole village will come 
in sooner or later, and is sanguine beyond dreams about 
everything Indian — political, religious, and so forth. Over- 
looking his village is the ghat temple of Parbati, and he sees 
there the site of the new cathedral he will build. He is the 
first saint I have ever seen, and as sane as you and me. 
I've never known such faith and good temper where you 
might expect the opposite. 

At Byapur the little suggestion of gold and colour still left 
on individual monuments is perhaps even more effective than 
the buildings in their original glory, at least to our eyes ; but 
what is a pity is that one sees dried- up ponds everywhere. 
These when filled with deep green water covered with water- 
lilies and reflecting roses planted along the edge like in the 
Vestal's garden in the Forum must have added much. But 
the atmosphere of departed splendours and living death 
cannot be conveyed in words, and the contrast between 
the little hospitals, high schools, and native dwellings we are 
putting up, sets us in a petty light as compared to the 
old kings. 

We had the luck to come in for the Mohurrum procession, 
which is celebrated at Byapur in a general spirit as there 
were no Shias, only Sunnis— and everybody takes part in the 

*7 



Charles Lister 

dancing. There are a lot of criminal classes in Byapur, and 
each of these organize a sort of quadrille. The thieves came 
out with swords, and danced in a ring crossing swords. 
Then there were the coiners, who did a sort of club dance. 
The " Deerhunters," the worst criminals of all, dressed up, i.e. 
painted their nude bodies as tigers or carried great nets and 
did a sort of sham tiger-hunt. The last are Hindus, the 
coiners and the thieves Mohammedans. People also carried 
little models of the mosques on the tops of sticks made of 
coloured and gilded paper ; they are the ta&uts, supposed to 
contain the sins of the people. They are taken to the river, 
or, failing this, the rubbish-heap, and then thrown in to sym- 
bolize the putting away of sin. The coiners say that all 
men went to Allah to ask what their trade was to be — to 
one Allah said he was to be a carpenter, to another a black- 
smith, and so on. When the father of the coiners came, 
Allah said nothing but gave him a coin. On going home 
he found this coin to be a bad one, and of course palmed 
it off on some one else — since then he and his descendants 
have done nothing else. And the buffalo — Adam in the 
days of creation got tired of naming the animals, so he asked 
Allah if he might make one. Allah gave him the materials 
and told him to go ahead, and the animal Adam made was 
the buffalo. He was not allowed to make any more. I've 
now done with the Deccan and am going north. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Khalsa College, Amritsar, Punjab, 

December 18, 1913. 

Here I am staying with Dick x to-night. He seems to have 

1 During his Indian tour Charles renewed his friendship with the family 
of the Rev. Richard Wright, for over forty years our vicar at Gisburne. 
He visited one of the Vicar's younger sons, then head master of Khalsa 
College, Amritsar. Here Charles enjoyed the experiences of inspecting 
with impartiality a large Native college. A bear hunt was thrown in to 
the Amritsar stay, and many old jokes were re-cracked whilst out in camp 
which carried both host and guest in spirit back to former days on the 



Indian Letters 

a most interesting, if somewhat controversial job here, and is 
much troubled still by the " beasts at Ephesus " from whom you 
saved him in 191 2, and for which he is very grateful. As 
matters now stand he has been recommended by the Govern- 
ment of India for the Government of India Education Depart- 
ment. The matter is under the consideration of the India 
Office and being handled in the usual leisurely departmental 
fashion. You will remember Montagu's letter you showed me 
to the effect that the Government of India must take the 
initiative in recommending such appointment. It would be 
rather a good thing if you could write again to Lord Crewe, or 
to him asking how the matter stands. Dick would like the 
affair expedited in order to silence local criticism and set a seal 
on his work here (this will actually be finished two years 
hence — a five years' contract, two of which have been served) ; 
so I take it would the local commissioner and deputy commis- 
sioner. But here nothing can be done or made public till the 
I.O. move. And from what I know of offices they won't move 
in hurry unless they have their memory jogged. I suppose it is 
morally certain the I.O. will accept the recommendation of the 
Government of India — but the sooner the better. You're the 
best judge yourself of how much of these reasons should be 
given to Lord Crewe or E. Montagu ; but I should be most 
grateful if you could take action. 

All sorts of things, shooting, etc., are being organized for me 
by my worthy host. The less real care a man gives to the 
blasphemers the more he is attacked by them. I wonder if 

vicarage lawn, shaded by its heavy sycamore, when Charles, as quite a 
little boy, used to play bowls with the vicar. His host at Amritsar, 
Richard Wright, a Cambridge Blue, and capital shot and fisherman, is 
now head master at the Chiefs' College at Lahore. 

The Rajah of Chamba entertained the two young men handsomely, 
"He could not have done more for the Viceroy than he has done for us," 
wrote Dick Wright to me. " Chamba is right in the Himalayas, 75 miles 
from a station. The Rajah sent us a cavalcade, headed by two beautiful 
ponies for a six hours' ride through magnificent mountain passes and in- 
describable snows. The homes of the black bears were 2,000 feet up an 
enormous nullah. The Rajah provided attendants, and the signal was the 
rolling of boulders down the nullah." — R t 

69 



Charles Lister 

you went to Udaipur when you were in this country. It is a 
sort of fairy palace sloping down into a lake dotted with island 
palaces and peopled by real Rajputs, and every native house or 
shop is nearly four hundred years old. You would have 
delighted in it — the park filled with wild pig and the whole 
untidiness and profusion and squalor of Indian grande 
seigneurie. They have a fine contempt for what is " model," 
and I wonder what the agent at Welbeck would think if he 
saw these things. I'd sooner be an Indian maharajah than an 
English duke, I think. The Maharajah of Udaipur has shot 
one thousand tigers — more than I've shot rabbits. I had tea 
with the political officer, Colonel Kaye, who was captain of 
the Winchester XI and remembers you coming down to see 
Mr. Johns in the old days, and going to service in the cathedral. 
Then I stayed a day with the Agent-General of Rajputana — Sir 
E. Colvin at Ajmeer — a great man and a real charmer. One 
thing which has impressed me enormously is the amount Lord 
Curzon did for the buildings of India. Everywhere you go to 
is always Curzon " Lard " restored this or that, and so well 
done. It was a fine work of his viceroyalty. One day at 
Delhi en route for here, where I saw Lutyens and the new 
Delhi plans, which impressed me favourably. I also saw the 
Janra Meurjid Humayun's tomb, where Hodson shot the last 
Mogul then and there. I wish Shah Jehan was building the 
new Delhi. My bearer has fever ; all well otherwise. Cold up 
here — I had to buy warm things at Delhi. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Khalsa College, 

December 24, 1913. 

My host here has had an extraordinarily interesting job. 
The Khalsa College was built and started entirely with Sikh 
money, and was intended as a nursery for " advanced" Sikh 
thought. Result : it became a hotbed of sedition. Govern- 
ment had to take it in hand. Now that the King's enemies 
can't capture the place, they try to discredit it all they know 

70 



Indian Letters 

and smash it up. My friend has kept his end up like a man, 
knocked out the seditionists and got it quiet. The Sikh is an 
interesting card and wants watching ; the " politics wallahs " 
of the Deccan and Bengal are mice, but the Sikh is a man. 
That's the serious thing, and the present generation have 
forgotten the hammering we gave the Sikhs in the wars of 
the forties. He is extraordinarily good-looking — d'une beaute 
presque vulgaire — rather classical too, perhaps the effect of the 
presence of the army of Alexander the Great for some time, when 
he fought King [word illegible], very religious and a passionate 
intriguer whether on the right or the wrong side. He is won- 
derfully obliging and good mannered, and the way the people 
in the villages and outlying towns put themselves out for us 
on our shooting expeditions was amazing. A sort of royal 
send-off at the station, with garlands and accompaniment of 
the Sikh cry, "God is true." His religion is very pure — a 
schism from Hinduism started by Gurn Nanule about four 
hundred years ago. "Sikh" is a religious, not a racial term 
— one god — ten gurus or teachers — no smoking, on earth at 
least. The Khalsa College boys, if the football team wins 
a cup, etc., go to the Golden Temple of the Sikh St. Peter 
and offer thanks to God. On one occasion the hockey captain 
asked, before an important match, that the assistant-clerk of 
the Principal's office should be let off work for the day of 
the match because he was such a first rate pray-er, and would 
surely induce God to plump for Khalsa College ! God is 
responsible for everything — the number of ducks one is going 
to shoot, whether one catches one's train, etc. 

We had three capital days' shikar after ducks and snipe — 
a meagre bag for India, about fifty ducks and twenty snipe in 
the three days, but the jolliest shooting in great marshes with 
ten-foot high bullrushes and little waterways in between, the 
great open plain with occasional crops, then a line of trees, 
then the Himalayas in the distance. The best shikari you 
ever saw — Mohammedans. They made us shoot coot for 
them, and killed them by cutting their throats and breaking 
their legs, which is a salaam to Allah. The way they marked 

7J 



Charles Lister 

down the dead duck is a masterpiece. One can go anywhere 
here and find empty bungalows to stay in, shoot anywhere 
without asking My Lord's or His Grace's leave, and generally 
stretch oneself— which one can't do in England with its 
duke-ridden country-side — "a buck under every bush and no 
dukes," as Julian Grenfell said in praise of India. Then we 
went an armed picnic down the river Beas, one of the five 
rivers of the Punjab. Great sand river flats and grass-covered 
lagoons, with the Himalayas in the background, and fruit- 
less stalks after black buck and fruitless searches after crocodile 
— but a never-to-be-forgotten picnic. 

To the Same. 

Delhi. 

( No dale.) 

From Ajmeer I went to Delhi, where I saw Lutyens and 
the plans for the new Delhi. The Government House will 
have huge domes in the middle pillar fronting, fountains at 
the roof corners, built round courts, red sandstone up to top 
of steps, then white stone. The Secretariats will have smaller 
domes, and one big minaret at the corner. They will be more 
Indian in style. This may be conflicting. 

I then went in Lutyens's motor to Humayan's tomb — where 
Hodson caught the last of the Moguls in the Mutiny time, 
pulled him out and shot him there and then ; and then to the 
Nizam Uddin tomb, a Shah Jehan building of red sandstone 
inlaid, like most of the buildings here, with marble, entirely 
simple but vast. A huge court ; fountain in middle ; central 
mosque under large dome. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

The Guest House, 

Chamba, near Dalhousie, 

December 29, 1913. 
One line to tell you that Dick and I have had a bear-hunt, 
organized by the Rajah, and killed two bears, We arrived 
7Z 



Indian Letters 

here the day before yesterday after a magnificent two days' 
tonga and riding journey through the hills, and yesterday at 
12.45 o'clock set out bear shooting. The Rajah had organized 
a " bonk " for us — which I'm told is a tremendous honour, 
as a rule only reserved for Viceroys and Commissioners. The 
bears had been located in a wood running up from a deep 
nullah into a pine-topped hill — extraordinarily thick cover. 
The men began beating practically from the horizon, shouting 
and throwing stones down. The bears were about three 
hundred yards below the horizon and took nearly an hour 
to move. We then had a merry fusillade. In my first four 
shots I wounded a big she-bear in the back — aft rather than 
fore — but must have broken the spine, as she was too weak to 
go on and came back and sat down, when Dick gave her the 
coup de grdce in the shoulder, probably also a shot in the nose, 
though I may have done this too. Her coming back made the 
others come back, and we had a second go, Dick cleverly 
killing another through the back. The bears were about 
two hundred yards off when we first shot, and difficult shooting, 
being hard to see for the scrub. For the later shots they were 
nearer — my fire was resultless, I regret to say. One bear, a 
cub, but about third to half grown, then advanced down the 
bottom of the nullah and came up towards us. At about 
fifteen to twenty yards off he stopped and looked at us through 
a bush, his head and neck visible. I delivered at him with 
seemingly crushing results, and he collapsed for the moment 
with a cry of pain, and, like the novice, feeling sure I'd 
accounted for him, I didn't fire at him on the ground. How- 
ever, he was more frightened than hurt, and went on gaily 
running the gauntlet of the Rajah and fils, who had stayed 
behind. I got him in the neck, but lightly. Dick was 
magnificent, and I felt like Napoleon after Marengo, extricated 
from a nearly disastrous situation by Desaix. The Wrights 
are really marvels, and Dick, I'm sure, could be a real Selous 
with the time for it. I was much impressed by the way the 
beaters went for the bear — throwing stones at them at a very 
short distance. The kindness and charm of -our host are 

73 



Charles Lister 

wonderful. We were torch-lighted home. You would like 
the Chamba ponies, little short-legged, sturdy beggars, who 
go up these " khud " paths like monkeys, and never put a foot 
wrong. I am asking the Rajah to Gisburne with warmth — 
I fancy he is a rather pious Hindu and won't come. He 
wouldn't eat with us at the guest-house for pious reasons, 
or rather for the pious reasons of his subjects. This is 
the only place in India where I've as yet found electric light 
generally used, and there are suspension bridges and every 
sort of modern tackle. It is rather a surprise in a place 
eighty-five miles by tonga and pony from Pathankote and 
served mainly by coolie transport. 



To the Same. 

Viceregal Lodge, Delhi, 

January 8, 1914. 

The only tidy place I've seen in India since I've been there 
has been the jail at Jerojepore. I went there after Amritsar 
to see an old Oxford I.C.S. man. He was pigging it like 
the rest of them here — sharing a bungalow with two others 
and sleeping in a tent, moving into the house occasionally 
when they went to camp ; then out again when they came 
back. All life seems a camp here — one long camp — and the 
jail the only stable habitation of man. This, the jail, was 
marvellous. The summary justice of the civil surgeon who 
ran it ; the mild industry of the prisoners and their well-fed, 
sleek appearance, the spotless cleanliness of the mud walls 
and floors, the absence of barbarities like prolonged solitary 
confinement and church services and chaplains' sermons 
— all made one very proud of the common-sense way the 
Englishman, if left to himself by cranks, or untroubled by 
religious lunatics and members of Parliament, can work 
things. 



74 



Indian Letters 

To the Hon. Irene Law ley. 

Government House, Lucknow, 

January 13, 1914. 

I think this is the most distinguished address from which 
I have written. I came here with the Viceroy. 

I suppose, as an old Anglo-Indian, that you have some idea 
of the greatness of the Viceroy. I hadn't, and I have been 
bewildered and left speechless with admiration at the special 
trains, and attentive and efficient A.D.C.'s, red drugget, bunting, 
and obsequious officials of every kind, caskets of silver, etc., 
in which he lives, moves, and has his being. There is no post 
like it in all the world, and I would sooner be it than Prime 
Minister — or almost than Pope, and where one is hedged in 
by the many taboos. Lady Hardinge has a better time in 
some ways, in that she has all the men of highest precedence 
to sit next to at dinner, who are generally of the most interest- 
ing sort of Indian Civil Service men and Lieutenant-Governors. 
Her Excellency is very wide-awake and has picked up a lot. 
H.E. is a fine type of Englishman, with a simple direct way of 
going at things, a large fund of moral courage and a genial 
outlook on life. He talks very freely, though I've only so 
far talked diplomatic shop with him. He is most liberal 
minded. Personally I think he's very much in the right 
place. 

One day we went to Cawnpore. This is one of the saddest 
places on earth, and when one is standing within Sir Hugh 
Wheeler's lines one cannot resist a feeling of despair for the 
future, and a conviction that no reconciliation between the two 
races can ever be attained. And I am afraid it is not only 
at Cawnpore that this feeling comes home to roost. One hears 
on some authority many dark stories of Rajahs insulted in 
clubs and first-class carriages by fiery young subs. ; of ladies 
who complained at having to meet Indian " nuts " at Government 
House lunches ; of the disastrous scandals, or rather one 
particular one in which an Englishman was involved with an 
Indian girl of high rank in public opinion. This apparently 

75 



Charles Lister 

has delayed the movement to break down purdah for years 
to come, it was so much talked about. It seems a shame that 
all the patient work of men like M. should be ruined by an 
act of irresponsibility of that sort. The Englishman must live 
dead straight in India, both in manners and morals, and it 
is Bible and sword heroes like old Havelock, whose tomb I 
saw to-day at the Alum-Bagh, who have made us respected. 
I am told that in spite of every effort made in high places 
the cleavage between English and Indian is getting wider, that 
the Indians are asking for more and that the English are 
more on edge. Relations in native regiments, for example, 
are less cordial except in the cases of Gurkha and Pathan 
and Baluchi regiments. If true, this is all rather depressing 
— especially at a moment when the official world is striving 
so hard to carry out a policy of apaisement and to make 
people pull together. 

An old I.C.S. man told me that India was a country of 
aristocrats governed by democrats — a very true remark, which 
sizes up a good many of our difficulties in getting into an 
Indian point of view. I suppose the British Raj is a stage 
in India's journey from chaos to chaos ; for one is inclined 
to believe that Hinduism will absorb or shed us all — Hinduism 
impure and antique ; I doubt any purified form of Hinduism 
long surviving. At present the Hindu is in the back seat, 
but the man in the back seat often sits longest. Then I expect 
the spiritually devitalized condition of Hinduism to-day almost 
vouches for its longevity. The less vital a body, the less it feels 
shocks. I suppose men are fast losing " belief," in the sense 
we use the word, in the dogmatic side of Hinduism ; but that 
doesn't stop them from clinging to observance and to the whole 
solid system of Hinduism, and all-Hindu India with a govern- 
ment of Hindus will be chaos indeed — the most modest standard 
of efficiency would be quite out of its reach. India would 
become one huge Nasik, and money-changers would for ever 
defile the Temple. Well, at any rate, India has been a school 
of heroes for us — no one can come out of the Residency at 
Lucknow without feeling a braver man, and one more ready to 
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Indian Letters 

believe in his country and face its perils. It has the same 
rousing effect as the presence of Lord Chatham. 

To Lord Ribblesdale.. 

Viceregal Lodge, Delhi, 

January 22, 1914. 

My days have gone on here very agreeable, brightened by 
two mornings with the Delhi hounds. These are a pucka fox- 
hound pack lent by the Maharajah of Gwalior, and on both 
occasions provided quite good fun. The first day, Monday, 
was very cheerful ; we were on the move the whole time, viz. 
6.45 to about 8.15, and killed one jack after a short burst and 
ran another to ground after a very good chase, which involved 
crossing a canal and some stirring climbing of earthworks put 
up by our benevolent Government. This morning scent was 
less good, and we had about an hour and a half s pottering after 
a good straight-necked jack, whom, however, we failed to hustle 
at all and who also went to ground. The hounds certainly 
worked very well, and the day was a jolly one. Otherwise I 
have sight-seen, played golf, and generally enjoyed life. The 
comforts of the place have rather deranged my tummy, but it 
has been worth it. You would be much impressed by the huge 
work going on to make the new Delhi. Faith — assisted by some 
9,000 coolies — is engaged in removing a mountain on which to 
rest the Secretariats, and raising another on which Government 
House is to stand, and the roads have been levelled out right 
and left, and the whole place turned into an enormous dust- 
heap. It is extraordinary seeing how these people work and 
the way everything is done by manual labour, machinery being 
dear to import and coolies quite unable to work it. I imagine 
this cry about the relative cheapness of Oriental labour in 
Europe is rather bunkum. The Indian is cheaper, I expect, but 
far less efficient, and you have to employ five or six very often 
where you would only require one white man or woman. The 
Delhi people come from some distance — very often Pathans — 
and are paid fairly high. The Viceroy thinks his estimate of 

7Z 



Charles Lister 

.£4,000,000 for the Government part of the business will meet 
the case. I'm told, entre nous, it was a pure shot, and that his 
confidence so far is far from being justified. Government 
House alone will cost over ^"500,000, specially with the imper- 
turbable Lutyens to build it. The Rajahs will be turned loose 
over one area to build palaces of their own, which I should 
think will make a very curious medley. Every one is anxious 
to get as much done as possible so that it will be impossible for 
any new Viceroy to reverse the Delhi policy. 

I lunched with the General to-day ; he is in great conversa- 
tional form. Dick x is generally beloved, and has a royal time 
as the guest of the gayer rajahs. The General stands for the 
out-of-date " silent " Indian who is fast disappearing ; and one 
can't help admiring him as a man who really has got into touch 
with the people he is leading, and loves them like a father. 
This type of officer is, I fear, less common ; the Indian is less 
trustful and more assertive than he was, and the so-called 'fight- 
ing races," with the exception of the Pathan and the Gurkha, are 
disgruntled and degenerate. The whole nature of the struggle 
for existence has changed for the worse for them, and they 
think it hard that they are not allowed to cut the throats of the 
Bengalee competition-wallahs who beat them in exams, for 
Government billets. This seems rather the hour of the Babu- 
British, and men with foxy brains seem best suited to cope 
with the present-day problems. There was a Government 
House dance last night, to which Delhi rolled up in consider- 
able force — all very well done. We danced in the dining-room, 
and you would have laughed at the way the sweepers prepared 
the floor, they ran up and down on all-fours with dusters under 
their knuckles, and had it all done in no time. The Viceregal 
Court is a strong supporter of morals, or supposed to be so, and 
the lighter ladies anxiously let drop the corner of their skirts to 
conceal their legs as they sailed past Her Excellency in the 
ecstasy of the valse. 

I have also met Lady H., who from contact with Sir J. has 

1 General Sir O'M. Creagh's son, now a captain in the 7th 
Hussars. 

7.8 



Indian Letters 

acquired a considerable knowledge of affairs ; this makes her 
an agreeable conversationalist. She is, of course, slightly 
laudator temporis acti, but not very much so. The daughter 
is most agreeable and clever and a dear — rather like the 
Barbara type of woman. She has her father's brains by in- 
heritance. The question most discussed is Cawnpore and the 
rather public birching Lord H. gave the United Provinces 
officials. It is difficult to pronounce on the merits of the 
question. His action over the Indians in South Africa meets 
with general approval here, though it is recognized that Z. has 
exploited the whole question in order to embarrass the Govern- 
ment. He is of course as hot as mustard and a consummate 
vote catcher. Any other line, however, on the part of the 
Viceroy would have further helped his knavish schemes. 
G. . ., if you remember, had a great success with the P.M. 
To-day we went to see the house from which the bomb was 
thrown; it is a most appalling rabbit-warren — a fiery young 
policeman, full of convincing theories as to where the bomb 
was thrown from and how the assassin escaped, proved an 
excellent guide. A Parsee lady in Paris is, it appears, the 
organizer of these atrocities, and the difficulty of the police 
is that when they do catch these terrorists they find they are 
babbling babes who hardly know what a bomb is and who 
could not possibly be the organizers of crime. The Delhi 
assassin has never been caught. It is regrettable to see how 
much the Viceroy has to be guarded— when he goes to Calcutta 
he enters a city of the dead. But another big bomb outrage 
would so seriously damage our prestige that we can't afford it. 
Must stop now. 

To the Hon, Irene Lawley, 

Viceregal Lodge, Delhi, 

January 27, 1913. 

Then there is the Jasmine Tower ; here Shah Jehan died, his 
gaze fixed on the Taj. He had been kept a prisoner all his 
last years by his son Aurungzeeb in a cell, which can still be 

79. 



Charles Lister 

seen — on the plea that he was mad ; like the King of Bavaria's 
building mania. He did indeed intend to build a tomb in 
black marble on the opposite bank of the Jumna which should 
be a great replica of the present Taj, and to connect the two 
monuments with a silver bridge, which would have been rather 
a job. From the Jasmine Tower there is a fine view to the 
Taj, and the old Emperor begged as a last boon that he might 
be allowed to die there with the monument of his love in view. 
One feels that the old man after all his disappointments and 
tragedies must have believed at that supreme moment that he 
had not lived in vain. Very few of us, after all, leave such over- 
whelming tangible results behind us. I feel the Emperor must 
have been his own architect, and that the Italians who did the 
inlaid work, etc., were workers in detail. The buildings imme- 
diately before and after Shah Jehan are so immeasurably 
inferior, and if there'd been some Government architect on 
the spot it is likely his work would have overlapped either into 
the reign before or reign after. 

I think the view I liked best of the Taj was by the light 
of many stars before the moon got up through the gate. 
The stars were all reflected in the water, which gives a per- 
spective up to the monument, and there was a lamp dimly 
burning in the inside. The building looked like the outer 
shell of some deep inner mystery which just managed to 
shine through its walls, or perhaps like some great cloud 
through which the light of the moon has just begun to 
peep. You never saw anything so perfect as the proportions 
and the combination of quite plain shapes into synthesis of 
extraordinary beauty. 

And then I must tell you about Fatehpur Sikri, which was 
the city built by Akbar and abandoned because of failure of 
water supply. It is the greatest monument to the personal 
grandeur of one man that I have ever seen, and a man who 
simply stands out in world history. Think of him dreaming 
of a Hindustan welded into one by a common religion, which 
he tried to evolve by making representatives of the various 
religions meet — carrying out a policy of tolerance, and race 
So 



Indian Letters 

fusion, and he the heir of Jehad-preaching Tartar freebooters — 
and this at times when Christians were sending their fellows 
to the stake in every country of Europe. 

Akbar himself soared into an ideality far beyond the under- 
standing of the ordinary man. I admire the inscription on 
the big gate of victory built to commemorate his victories 
in the Deccan and his conquest of Ahmednagar and its 
Queen : " Said Jesus, on whom be Peace, The world is a 
bridge, build no house on it." I forget how it goes on. But 
one feels now the dream of a united India in creed and 
government, and one is faced by the old tragedy of the 
great man who lives long enough, dying in disillusionment 
and in gloom of ideals unrealized. The man who could put 
up that inscription in the moment of conquest must have 
been on the grand scale. It's the old story — Jesus at the 
close of life asking only that the cup might pass from him ; 
Paul pacing the sands of the Spanish coast in doubt ; 
Napolean at St. Helena. I suppose the big man alone 
realizes how much there is to be done, and is conscious 
sometimes of his own achievements in relation to what 
is left. By the time of Shah Jehan I fancy the Moguls 
realized how very little they could do politically for India 
on the lines sketched out by Akbar, and decided to pursue 
beauty alone and live only by their achievements in the 
service of Art. 

Aurungzeeb tried to revive the Mogul Empire as an 
active and militant political power, and came badly to grief. 
At Fatehpur Sikri Akbar's Hindu decorations are all 
knocked about and mutilated. This was Aurungzeeb, the 
pious Moslem who objected to images of the Hindu sacred 
animals — the peacock, the elephant, and the monkey. The 
work of the wise in this country is always wrecked by the 
impulses of the fools, and it is a pathetic picture, the de- 
scendant of Akbar going round with his hammer like a 
militant suffragette, a pathetic end to the dream of the 
Empire and union. At Delhi, which is entirely Shah Jehan 
period — that is, earlier than the Taj and than the fort at 

G 81 



Charles Lister 

Agra — one is vastly impressed with the sense that politics 
have taken a back seat, and that the ideal has been to 
construct a ceremonial capital and a seat of pleasure and 
magnificence. 

The site of the new Delhi is of extraordinary interest, and 
one looks over the ruins of seven ancient Delhis which have 
one and all gone the way of ruin. The most interesting of 
these is the city of Humayun — Akbar's father and his tomb. 
Akbar and his son Jehangir never went to Delhi. The present 
Delhi is Shah Jehan's city — a fine, severe, robust style of 
architecture ; only mosques and tombs left of it on a fine 
expanse of dusty and scrub-covered plain. 



82 



IV 
PRE-WAR LETTERS FROM CONSTANTINOPLE 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

March 28, 1914. 

These are stirring times in which we live. I quite agree that 
a general election would do no good to any one now. If the 
Liberals come in again they won't find Ulster any more 
amenable. If the Tories come in they'll find the rest of 
Ireland in a similar condition of unrest. I don't understand 
how they failed to reach an agreement having got so near one 
unless the whole idea of compromise was impossible from the 
beginning. The whole Irish business discredits party politics 
altogether, and the only people at all in a heroic light are 
the Ulster people, however local their point of view has been. 

In this part of the world, too, we have our Ulster ; the 
Greeks on the southern frontier of Albania whom the Powers 
have decided to assign to Albania have taken matters into 
their own hands and are having the time of their lives. They'll 
see themselves damned before they become Albanians, and 
wish to be independent or Greek. 

I can't help liking people who really want a thing. Of 
course of our present troubles it may be said that the 
Prime Minister wanted to stop in office, or that Bonar Law 
wanted to get into office, but I'm old-fashioned enough to think 
these things don't matter so much as what the Ulster people 
are fighting for, 

83 



Charles Lister 

I went out a grand walk since writing, up on the down 
country above the Bosphorus. It is very treeless round here, 
wind-swept downs with occasional wooded valleys and sheltered 
bits where the peach-trees grow, and one can see little clouds 
of pink blossom. Then occasionally there is a dip in the 
ground, and there appears a bit of blue sea and a glimpse 
of the Asiatic coast and the road to Bagdad. There are some 
fine castles on the Bosphorus, 1 great walled enclosures — walls 
sloping up and down hill in conformity with the ground, with 
round high towers at the corner and broken-down little Turkish 
houses in the middle with the same matchwood walls and 
red roofs. The peasants use the buffalo as in India. The 
Turk is a hopeless mongrel here ; one can distinguish no 
" type," only occasionally one comes across the snub-nosed, 
slit-eyed, high-cheek-boned, highly coloured Mongolian, and 
one thinks of the original hordes that came into Europe and 
swarmed into India under Genghiz Khan and Timur. There 
is a great deal of Circassian blood in the modern Turk, as 
all the chosen women of the Sultan and the Pasha were 
Circassians, uprooted from the ends of the Black Sea and as 
white as snow. The Turks one meets in society have most 
agreeable manners and conversation. Sir Louis thinks the 
present sort are really anxious about getting things more into 
shape. The poverty of the State chest is appalling. Some 
weeks ago none of the officials were paid, and they couldn't go 
to their offices because they couldn't afford the tram fare 
and the price of the lunch. They could have got credit at the 
Greek shops, but the mot d'ordre had gone round that those 
were to be boycotted by good Ottomans owing to political 
differences. So you can imagine their suffering. Things are 
rather better now. I'm afraid the new Government will 
commit a serious crime, for they have just condemned one 
Aziz Ali to death on quite frivolous charges. This was the 
man who did all the fighting in Cyrenaica against the Italians. 
He is a hero, and looks like becoming a martyr. They may 

1 The Crusaders (the Christians) built castles wherever they went, 
much finer castles than any in Europe. — B. W. C. 

84 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

commute the sentence to one of life imprisonment, which is 
virtually equivalent. Aziz will probably "get ill in jail." 
The real reason seems to be that Enver, who is trying to be 
the Napoleon of Turkey, fears him as a possible rival. It will 
make a very bad impression in Egypt, which is seething with 
interest in Aziz Ali's fate. 



To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

April 5, 1914. 

I've had a very jolly time lately, take it all in all. Lots of 
work, Harold Nicolson having fallen ill, but some very good 
rides and walks. The down country from the city up to the 
Forest of Belgrade is really glorious ; white heather and scrub 
all over the downs, then little valleys up which one rides and 
which end in woodland paths. There are everywhere violets 
and scarlet and purple anemones. The occasional villages with 
their wooden houses, a little mosque with its minaret and 
orchards in blossom, are most fascinating. Then below there 
are green hill meadows, and streams very much covered in with 
trees and scrub. Yesterday I went to Santa Sofia. From some 
distance off one thinks it quite small ; as one gets nearer one 
thinks it quite big, and once inside one is really staggered by 
the size of it. It is immense. Great porphyry and grey marble 
columns, and great dabs of red and grey marble covering the 
walls like panels — a perfect Greek-cross shape. The Turks, 
when they came in, painted over all the mosaics on the ceiling 
with gold to obliterate the Christian pictures and crosses, and 
put up their " merab " out of line with the orientation of the 
eastern window. Also all the prayer-carpets which cover 
every inch of the floor are skew-eyed. This is because Christian 
churches are orientated towards Jerusalem, mosques towards 
Mecca. The nave of the church is covered with vulgar green 
plaques with gold Arabic lettering of huge size which look like 
patent-medicine advertisements. These are the names of the 
first few Caliphs, I think. Also, the roof is covered with a sort 

85 



Charles Lister 

of silly design of no worth superimposed with the gold paint to 
hide the Christian symbols. The side aisles, where it is darker 
and where one is left with the marble walls and pillars, are 
most impressive. Here one sees less of the defacements of the 
infidel. 

These are distressful countries ; ever since the war there has 
been a continual va et vient of refugees from one state to 
another. Greeks had found life impossible under Bulgar rule, 
Bulgars under Greek rule, and so on, and they all seemed to 
seek soil under the flag of their own particular nation. It is a 
gloomy vision, and one can picture the arrival of these un- 
fortunate victims of a racial hatred equally awake in time of 
peace as in time of war, and their homelessness. Mussulmans 
are now pouring into Eastern Thrace from Bulgaria and Greek 
territories. 

And what of social Constantinople ? I went on the night 
of April 1st — a fool indeed — to two parties at the Italian and 
French Embassies respectively. Such nice parties. You would 
have loved them. It is extraordinary how much politics are 
talked of an evening in the houses of the rich and the great, 
when you compare it with Rome. Sir Louis never leaves 
the side of Talaat Bey at social functions. The French 
Ambassadress is giving an 1830 ball shortly. I suppose the 
fancy-dress ball habit would follow one to Honolulu. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

April 12, 1914. 

Here we are, still much concerned about Aziz Ali ; it is a bad 
business — on a par with the murder of the Due d'Enghien by 
Napoleon, and Marshal Ney by Louis XVIII — and I wish I 
could do something. I fear they mean to have his blood — 
Ugh — one has to meet these red-handed ruffians at parties. 

Then we have had Easter, and I sang in the choir. The 
Ambassador went out to Broussa in the yacht and took all the 
sailors with him, on whom we mostly depend for our musical 
86 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

talent ; so Jones * (the butler) and I had to support the 
"virtuous females," as Mr. Jorrocks would call them, in the 
choir. It is tiring work, and I nearly burst a blood-vessel. 
However, the service rattled on very merrily, like an Irish 
jaunting-car. I gave the women no support in the " Alleluias " 
— a vulgar exclamation the Almighty must really resent — and 
always on a crackingly high note. I don't believe you can sing 
as well as I do. Not as loud, anyway. 

I am very happy here and pleased with most things, except 
that I've lamed Gerry Wellesley's pony ; don't tell him. And 
I've furnished my bedroom at dirt-cheap price — only £16, and 
that includes a bookcase. But it will be difficult to make my 
room at all nice. I have also to buy a pony. 

I have been to bazaars and looked at carpets — what a com- 
plicated hobby. I feel I'll never know anything about them. 
But the really good ones are like great sheets of deep, glowing 
gems — a sea of them — and the shops here have stacks of them. 
And loot ! think of it — think of the breach in those walls, 
white and brilliant against the blue skies, and the rush down 
the roughly cobbled streets with the dark bazaar arcades, and 
the trembling Greeks and Armenians on their knees, their faces 
pale and their lips quivering as they beg that something may 
be spared them. And the ride home with the spoils, each to 
his mistress, to lay the choicest at her feet. 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

Constantinople, 

April 13, 1914. 

L. Mallet is a most agreeable chief. He thinks George 
Lloyd will be Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs in the next Tory Government. I think it is very 
difficult to make up one's mind which has behaved worst, 
during recent bothers, of the two parties. My impression is 

1 In a letter dated Alexandria, July 1915, Charles wrote: "Jones is 
longing to fight, and regretting his over-age " ; and in other letters he 
often alludes to his efficiency and merits. — R. 

*7. 



Charles Lister 

the Government did want to launch troops on a perfectly 
orderly part of the Empire, as if it were an enemy's territory. 
It is quite true that the Ulster people were potentially dis- 
orderly. But the point is that they have given no provocation 
for such measures. In the case of strikes, troops are never sent 
till riots actually take place, and then on the distinct under- 
standing that they are to defend property, etc. This cry of the 
army versus the people is quite absurd and won't catch on. 

I cannot think the Prime Minister's plan of letting things 
rip until the Ulster movement got such purchase that he could 
turn to his supporters and Redmond and say that he must grant 
concessions has answered. This, I suppose, was his idea. How- 
ever, the other alternative policy of preventing Ulster from 
arming might have had worse results, and made his own 
followers even less amenable to some settlement than they 
are now. Since you wrote things look rather better. A 
General Election now will do very little good as a solution. 
The parties should agree on a Federal solution — a very un-ideal 
one, in my view — and have all vital points settled in advance 
before they go to the electors. Besides, rebus sic stantibus, 
whichever party gets in, the situation remains revolutionary. 

To my mind the question, on its merits, has long been settled 
— no incorporation of Ulster into a Home Rule Ireland ; Home 
Rule for the rest of Ireland. 

I think A. J. B.'s estimates are unduly pessimistic. After all, 
the thing remains " much ado about nothing," considering the 
relative smallness of the interests involved. 



To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

April 16, 1914. 

One approaches the " amusements " with high expectations, 
and one leaves them with a feeling of pleasant surprise that it 
wasn't worse. London amusements, with few exceptions, are 
not so. Expectations generally run high and fall short. Not 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

in my mind, because I always liked the moment— plus ou mows. 
But one feels one would like other moments much better. 

Here we had a cotillon at the French Ambassadress's : I 
sat unwisely in a rather prominent place, loosely attached to a 
pillar of the British colony. I was continually pulled up from 
my seat by charming and unknown damsels, and made to 
dance. You, who know how well I dance, can picture what 
this must have been. Generally I got through all right, and 
lasted out the figure — but not always. Dreadful having great- 
ness thrust on me. After a rather unusual number of collisions 
I retired to a back seat. It was a jolly party, and I got out 
well at i a.m. ; not so a poor colleague, who was collared by 
our formidable hostess and made to partner a jeune fille for the 
rest of the evening. The French Ambassadress said, " On est 
Ambassadrice mats on est pourtant femme" ; and that at 
moments of great , crisis, " On cesse d'etre Ambassadrice, on 
redevient femme" Wednesday next I shall confront this 
social potentate in 1830 costume. I like fancy balls to see 
other people's dresses for one moment, and one's own in the 
glass. But the idea of not being in one's ordinary clothes 
for a whole evening makes me shudder. I should like to get 
my fancy clothes off at once. My 1830 costume will be (1) 
whiskers, (2) Lord R.'s riding trousers, (3) hunting coat and 
waistcoat, (4) special jabot stock, (5) hunting top-hat. 

I have lamed Gerry Wellesley's horse ; sent his dog to the 
vet. for a little visit (in my charge she insisted on being sick 
every morning) ; hired a horse who is estimable if inelegant, and 
furnished my bedroom and much of my sitting-room. 

I feel no courage about buying things in a bazaar. They 
are all such experts here, from the Ambassador downwards, and 
I feel that for such a short time as I'll have here it's no use. I 
suppose I haven't the real collector's spirit. My Turkish goes 
on badly. The work has a compelling charm. I am pining 
to travel, but can't get away as we're so short, so I shall come 
home by a wonderful detour in the autumn late, or winter. 

Aziz has got fifteen years, equivalent to a death sentence. 
He is bronchial. 

89 



Charles Lister 

To Mrs. Graham Smith. 1 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

April 26, 1914. 

Many thanks for your charming letter, which I should have 
answered before now. 

I have been very pleased with life here, and I am sure I shall 
like this place very much. The work is, of course, very much 
more interesting than at Rome, and one has every sort of thing 
to do, what with bazaar riding and sight-seeing. 

The chief political interest just now is Turco-Greek relations 
They are very strained. An exchange of population is in pro- 
gress between Macedonia and Thrace at present, and every sort 
of hardship is involved in the migration. Then there is the 
question of the islands. The Turks have a very active Minister 
of Marine, and the confidence inspired by his reforms in the 
fleet may tend to make the Turkish Government rather 
unyielding on the Mitylene and Scios question. 

Otherwise things are pretty quiet. The hunting here is 
quite amusing. A drag pursued by some twelve rather measly 
dog hounds over rather rough hill and heather country. The 
Master wears a pink coat and hunting cap of velvet — not hard. 
It is very comic. The Germans are very keen, and some 
Turkish officers come out, who are very agreeable. They talk 
French, and don't like talking German, which is the lingo one 
would think they would naturally know. 

The Turks generally are more accessible now. The Ministers 
give dinner-parties of great splendour. Enver gave a very 
magnificent feast, I heard, with a band playing Wagner. He 
has married a royal princess, and plays the grand seigneur with 
great assiduity. 

The society here is very official and political, Ministers and 

Ambassadors on every sofa talking high politics, very unlike 

Rome, which was frivolous and where the politicians never 

went out in the monde. 

' Mrs. Graham Smith was Charles's Aunt Lucy, third daughter of the 
late Sir Charles Tennant and sister of Lady Ribblesdale. Easton Grey, 
near Malmesbury, was a second home to Charles in the holidays. — B. W. C. 

90 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

To the Hon. Irene Law ley. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

May 9, 1914. 

How I envy your Spain and your drives to Sierra, and so 
on. . . . I've never been to Cameldoli — several places called 
that, one near Genoa, one near Naples — I never went to 

either. We were so d d busy at Naples that we could 

never get out for expeditions. I think I rather misspent my 
time in Italy and didn't travel enough, being so much taken up 
with the hunting. Worst of life is one can't do everything at 
once, and that's what one finds to be very much the case here. 
The gun-running adventure must have been thrilling ; but it 
looks now as if the crisis, as far as any real danger of civilians 
goes, was passed. I do not personally approve of " Federal " 
systems, but it seems that there is no way out except to give all 
turbulent persons (or potentially turbulent) exactly what they 
want and be done with it. I haven't read any speeches lately 
but I heard Mr. Birrell's was very good. The Government are 
very lucky not to have been hounded out of office with ignominy. 
I can't help thinking a more efficient Opposition would have got 
them out. 

We had a delicious day — Harold, H.E., and me — at Therapia, 
about twelve miles up Bosphorus — it is the Posillipo of this 
place and lovely. It has a terraced garden, chock full of roses 
and stocks and irises and every sort of flower. Embassy has 
just been burnt down, but See's house is standing, a jolly old 
wooden house, whitewashed but generally Turkish style. The 
sea is at the door, we went up in the mouche and picked roses. 
Opposite Therapia is the bleak coast of Asia Minor, red soil, 
rock, bare scrub hills. It has a great charm for me, more so 
than the European side. Up and down the Bosphorus there 
are continual flights of little birds like petrels, little lost souls 
going up into the gloomy, windswept expanses of the Black Sea. 
There is always wind at Therapia and always colleagues, which 
makes it less nice than P. But there are always lovely flowers 
and garden ponds. 

91 



Charles Lister 

We have had one or two jolly hunts, the last of them graced 
by the "flirt" of an important personage, a lady who is not 
received in polite society here. His lady was also at the meet. 
So His E. had to steer a clear course. My poor little horse 
had a swollen knee as a result of the chase. I'd a jolly ride 
as soon as the "flirt" had left me with a broken heart. And 
now I can't ride. 

Then there has been a great festa here, St. George's Day, 
Elias's day for the Mohammedans. The whole people go out 
if the weather is warm, and have a picnic off roast lamb. This 
time there were not many as the wind was cold. But a good 
many people came over. It is an extraordinary thing to see 
them all squatting on the ground, perfectly happy doing 
nothing, and one is reminded of the women and children sitting 
round the camp-fires of Genghiz Khan, the real nomad spirit 
still alive. Perhaps they are still tired and quite happy simply 
to rest after their long marches. It is a becoming dress this 
black sort of nun's habit they all wear, but rather triste in this 
ambiente of cypresses. I doubt if I've yet seen a single real 
Turkish woman. On St. George's Day we saw a number of 
Imperial princesses and Circassians — in broughams — very pink 
and white but with black hair, dressed in light blue sort of 
bridesmaids' dresses and caps. 

We have all suffered bitterly from the cold, but it is now at 
last lovely, and I am writing this in the garden, so forgive 
pencil. It has great possibilities, this garden, and it absolutely 
overlooks the Golden Horn with the row of mosques beyond. 
There is an upper terrace lined with orange-trees, fine, but then 
lawns with dreary Russian-salad-like-sort-of-beds and no Cyprus 
avenue or jolly perspective of an avenue. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

May 15, 1914. 

So you too are fired with the wanderlust. It is simply 
burning in me as the result of the presence of Miss Gertrude 
92 



Constantinople—Pre- War 

Bell, fresh from the heart of Arabia. She has been to a place 
called Hazzil, where you still find the East of the Middle Ages. 
It is ruled by the Amir Bim Rashid. He is a boy of sixteen, 
but he lives in the old-fashioned style. When Miss Bell 
arrived he was away raiding, leaving behind him his grand- 
mother— Fatima by name ; fairy story at once — and his wives, 
concubines, and eunuchs. It is an entirely women-run show, 
Fatima being absolutely supreme. The only other " European " 
in the place when Miss B. was there was a Circassian con- 
cubine sent to a former Bim Rashid by Abdul Hamid and 
passing from one head of the family to the next. The whole 
place smells of blood. They massacre each other in the tradi- 
tional way, and the common people look with horror at the 
Palace code of morals, and the wives pass from one stage to 
another as the wives of David passed to his rebel son 
Absalom. Miss B. was lodged in a magnificent Arabian 
Nights colonnaded hall. She went to audiences given by the 
Regent, a cypher in Fatima's hands, and by the ladies of the 
harem ; the ladies asked her what was the difference between 
Islam and Christianity, and she told them the words of the 
prophet Isa [Jesus], There was a real Mogul atmosphere of 
gems and brocades, all come from India, and burning spices, and 
outside a silent town. Not a footfall can be heard, for all the 
streets are sand, and the camel's footfall is noiseless. The little 
Circassians sighed for the tramways of Constantinople. The 
Bim Rashid's are on the downward grade ; the " man " of 
Arabia is one Bim Sand, Sheikh of El Hassa on the Gulf. 
He it was who was expelled from his city by a Bim Rashid, 
and reconquered it at the head of eleven men. He came by 
night to his wife, and she said as he knocked, " Who are you ? " 
and he answered, "This is no time for love and kisses"; and then 
he went with his eleven men into every house where there were 
men of Bim Rashid's and killed them, and by the morning was 
master of the city. And to hear all this second-hand. It's 
maddening. 

The Turkish provinces are in an appalling condition ; in the 
most administered parts of the country the disorder is worst. 

S3 



Charles Lister 

There is not even the tribal sense of honour. Every single 
Arab has a rifle, and the Turks can do nothing. They have 
no troops ; what they have are riddled with typhus. This is 
the great recruiting ground for the Turkish army, Asia Minor 
proper ; there are no men for the wars in the Yemen, and the 
Balkans have thinned the population to an incredible extent. 
The poverty is abject. 

Things are shaping for war with Greece. The Greeks will 
come to no arrangement not based on the status quo post 
bellurn ; and the Turks can offer them nothing in exchange for 
the islands now in Greek occupation, except the islands in 
Italian occupation, which in Greek views are a very bad egg, 
as it is doubtful if the Italians will ever turn out (I think they 
will, but the Greeks don't). The Greeks, if they fight now, can 
by a single declaration of war stop the Turks getting the Dread- 
noughts due to arrive this summer. If they temporize and let 
the Turks get these Dreadnoughts they will have to fight at a 
disadvantage. They can't get a Dreadnought for a long time. 
The only thing that may deter them is the fact that the Turks 
can bully Greeks living in Turkey. Even at this moment 
massacres of Greeks are feared at Smyrna, so incensed is the 
Moslem population against the Greek. 

It is a tragic country, and we may have to play a big role 
in Arabia, where the Sheikhs are already virtually independent, 
and where it would be very easy for us to establish a loosely 
knit protectorate and keep them to some extent from each 
other's throats. The Turks have failed to do this. At this 
moment I suppose we should give the present Turkish Govern- 
ment a chance of getting things right ; they are the only 
possible Government. The alternative is chaos leading to 
European occupation ; and we are spectators at a distance — 
such a distance. 

Turkish homes? I've been able to see very, very little of 
them. The Sultan Abdul, you will be glad to hear, has just 
got in another- wife — one of his former second strings. He 
seems full of beans. It appears he had two children during the 
time of his exile — from 1909 to 191 1 — one white and one jet 

94 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

black. This last wife has given us a lot of trouble, as the 
Turkish Government had given us assurances she should live in 
peace with her son, after she was chucked out from the Palace 
at the time of Abdul Hamid's exile ; and the fact that she has 
been made to rejoin her former husband, has considerably 
inconvenienced her present " domestic " arrangements, consist- 
ing apparently in a life of unbridled orgies. The Imperial 
wives are recruited from any and every class, generally the 
lowest of the low, by sort of spies. The same applies to the 
wives of the big swells. Result : you get the blood quite 
spoiled, and the rise of any kind of aristocracy is rendered 
impossible. This must have had very harmful results, and now 
that the Turks are directing the Greeks and Armenians, they 
cannot find administration among their own subjects. Hence 
the progressive increase of foreign officials, etc., etc. 



To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 
June 8, 1914. 

At a time when you write me long political letters, the 
crisis must be serious, and all things are possible. Write 
me another when you get home. We have not had much 
politics lately : mostly concerned with petty wrangles as to 
the size of the ship in which our Admiral is to visit the 
Sultan. This is a very material point ; bigger ships have 
more officers, and this entails larger banquets for the Grand 
Vizier and Sultan and more expense. The former's face fell 
perceptibly when he was told that the British Admiral was 
coming to see the Sultan. 

We hear less about war between Greece and Turkey, but 
things are shaping very badly. The Turks have a strong 
hand. If they fight they have nothing to lose. If the 
Greeks win the thing is not settled ; either they fight before 
the big Turkish ships come out, in which case the Turks 
skulk in .the Bosphorus where they can't be got at, and as 

.95 



Charles Lister 

soon as they have got their ships out press their demands 
again, or the Greeks fight while the ships are on the way 
or later, in which case they may destroy the Turkish fleet, 
and any way temporarily secure the islands ; but the Turks 
won't give up the idea of revanche, and they always have 
in their hand so many Greek subjects whose lives they can 
make quite unbearable. The only way out is an exchange of 
islands. But this the Greeks will never consent to : they hold 
the Turkish naval power in utter contempt and don't care if 
their nationals in Turkey suffer. However, perhaps if the 
issue is postponed things may straighten themselves out. 

On Wednesday we had the King's birthday garden party. 
The Ambassador stood on a carpet under a tree, and the 
Secretaries and Dragoman led down notable after notable 
into the radiant presence and then conducted them to a 
superb buffet — Turks, English, Armenians, Greeks, and so 
on. Men in cowls like lamp extinguishers, in chimney-pot 
berettes, in turbans and flowing robes, came up and fired 
off little speeches at him. 

Charles's long-standing interest in the perplexed affairs of the Near 
East suggested the ride through Macedonia and Albania described in the 
following letters. The " Durazzo crisis " discussed in the spring in the 
chanceries of Constantinople, and news of fighting in Albania — over a 
perennial Epirote grievance — added possibly the charm and invitation 
of a lost cause to the excursion. 

First we touch the history of Serbia in its year of triumph over Bulgaria 
after the Second War. The first Balkan war of the Christian States 
against the Turks ended with the Peace of Adrianople 1912. In the 
Second War, Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece after they had formed 
an alliance to resist the claims of Bulgaria, discontented with the 
provisions of the peace. 

The scene of battle visited at Kilkitsch is the field of Bregalnika, where 
the Bulgarian General fell on the Serbians suddenly, and where after 
two days' fighting the Serbs were victorious on July 1, 1913. Kilkitsch, 
burnt by their Greek allies, remained Serbian by the Peace of Bukharest, 
August io, 1913. The scene at Kilkitsch described is typical of Serbia 
in the process of consolidating her new territories and moving her 
populations. On the other hand, the linguistic and political Babel of 
Albania is represented by Durazzo, the capital, too much agitated at the 
moment by a Greek revolt for the wise English traveller to enter. 
96 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

Koritza in Albania, which was reached, is a city of great antiquity. It 
is the centre of much Anglo-Hellenism to-day. The Epirotes' cause sum- 
marized elsewhere by Charles as " the protest that they are Greeks and 
not Turks," was the supposed motive for the fighting which had recently 
dyed its streets red and that was still going on as Charles approached the 
scene which all along had been his goal. 

But whatever passing sympathy towards an Epirote cause inspired his 
start, his journey in Albania was marked with prudence and moderation, 
even detachment towards " the revolt of Tchukes." Charles's description 
of the nature of the cause at issue draws a picture of a cause obscure 
enough to discourage active partisanship. 

The Greek monastery visited on the way is near Karies, on Mount Athos. 
The Russian monks described belong probably to the great religious 
houses above the landing-places named Russovnik or Laura, on the 
Ionian Sea.— B. W. C. 

To the Same. 

Salonica, 

June 14, 1914. 

I am very flourishing ; off to Monastir to-morrow. I began 
my travels Monday and went to Mount Athos. Mount A. 
is like this, a long broken ridge running into this marvellous 
peak, the side of the ridge ; its innumerable ravines are thickly 
wooded scrub and heather with wild holly on the lower slopes 
and chestnuts and oaks and pines on the higher. The con- 
vents are mostly within two or three hours at nearest of each 
other, and are only approachable by mule or boat. I expected 
a sort of huge monastic building, cloister on cloister, didn't 
you ? — rather like S. Marco at Florence ten times over : or, 
perhaps more frowning and castellated. They are, as a matter 
of fact, great rambling country houses built in sometimes an 
English country house style, Lutyens, or the Stamboul style, 
round a sort of central court, most of which is taken up by a 
Byzantine church formed like the Greek cross and the dome 
in the centre. Inside there is a sort of covered loggia at first, 
then the church. The iconostasis dividing the inmost shrine 
(or sanctuary) from the rest. The inconostasis is a rood screen 
covered with icons, curious painted faces peeping out of an 
armour plating of gold and jewels, and an occasional brown 

H 97 



Charles Lister 

hand visible. The gold and silver work is very wonderful, 
mostly tenth and eleventh century. Then the cups are things 
of wonderful workmanship, presented as a rule by some Byzan- 
tine Emperor or his particular community. One I saw was in 
silver with little figures in gorgeous enamel worked all round, 
and another was of some sort of opalescent marble with gold 
setting and handles. Then there was a fine silver crucifix with 
the Emperor Constantine's seal on it which the abbot told me 
he was going to take back to Constantinople. There are also 
marvellous relics, not so much the dirty old bones themselves 
as the gold cases in which they are shelled. Through a chink 
in a wonderful gold and jewelled gauntlet you see the hand of 
St. Luke or St. John, a withered brown substance, rather like 

Lad)' 's personality, I should think, seen through her glowing 

outward form. The Greek Church have a strange tendency 
for " angelification." St. John Baptist is always represented 
with wings of an angel, and the angels who visited Abraham 
at Mam re and were chaffed by Sarah are supposed to have 
been the Holy Trinity. The Byzantine Church spent much 
energy in discussions on the sex of angels. I don't know 
what would happen if they came to Mount Athos, or if this 
question was ever settled. The monks were very hospitable 
and charming people ; only one did I find who could talk 
French, and they did not seem to have any great cultivation. 
They were feverishly interested in politics. The ritual of a call 
was rather complex ; on arrival one was ushered into a room — 
Axminster carpets and Maple armchairs of inferior quality, 
walls hung with portraits of all crowned heads, oleographs and 
photographs. One of them brought a tray with jam, liqueurs, 
and glasses of water ; and the proper procedure was to take a 
spoonful of jam, then a glass of water, then a liqueur. I made 
several mistakes. I tried to combine the jam and the water 
as a sort of sirop. I had to talk Turkish to them, my Albanian 
servant interpreting in Greek, so you can imagine what a 
brilliant standard conversation reached. They often took me 
to their libraries where there are lovely manuscripts and little 
golden-backgrounded angels and evangelists every twenty 

98 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

pages or so, and occasionally one comes across an Emperor's 
handwriting in purple, i.e. scarlet ink always ; not many fine 
bindings. I didn't stay at a monastery ; I was only there 
(Mount Athos) two days, and the headquarters, a place called 
Karies, is the most central. The scarcity which reigns there 
is remarkable ; one evening our host could only find three eggs. 

The monks seem to absorb all the eatables. My last day I 
went to see a Russian monastery, Moslem and organized on sort 
of Selfridge lines, almost two thousand people dependent on it. 
I saw the dinner the monks were going to have — one piece of salt 
fish with sauerkraut, not up to sample. Monasticism must be a 
vegetable sort of life tinged with discomforts no sensible man 
would accept. 

From Mount Athos to this place (Salonica) on a dirty old 
boat, where the whole of the third class was taken up by 
Moslem refugees going to Salonica to get a boat for Turkey. 
They lay in the hold on their beds and mattresses, a heap of 
human beings one on top of the other, occasionally lit up by 
flashes of lightning from behind the mountains. The women 
wore black Turkish dresses and palest veils and head-dress in 
one. While they slept their troubled sleep a couple of Greek 
soldiers were dancing on the bridge, singing curious songs and 
rather drunk. You saw the whole discomfort of life here in one 
flash. This is the coveted city, which has been fought for and 
will be fought for yet again. There is a magnificent semi- 
circular sweep of harbour, and from the harbour rise red roof 
after red roof up to the Venetian castellated walls and the fort 
beyond, Genoese towers by the sea close up by the walls, and in 
the fort there are old Mussulman houses almost up to Stam- 
boul, but in plaster instead of wood. The country around is 
barren down lands, cleared of vegetation, and a great plain on 
one side. The Jews are the real feature of Salonica. There are 
about 8o,ooo of them out of a population of 150,000. Most of 
the Salonica Jews are descended from Spanish Jews expelled by 
Ferdinand and Isabella. There is nothing else like it in this 
part of the world. There is no other town where the Jews are 
so much a community by themselves ; they keep their old 

99 



Charles Lister 

names intact also. Politics, I need not say, are the chief 
interest here, and, as connected with them, refugees ; and I have 
seen heaps and heaps of them all saying more or less the same 
thing. They are just put into vast camps here, the arrivals 
from Turkish territory, till they can be settled, and they are 
given a loaf of bread a day per head by the Greek Government. 
Then there are Greeks from the Caucasus who have come here 
hoping to find the streets paved with gold, sitting on their 
Da gg a g e in the harbour ; and there are Mussulmen leaving 
Christian territory, huddled into mosques, houses, anywhere till 
they get their boat. 

To-day we went out to the battlefield of Kilki, where the 
Serbs beat the Bulgars in the Allies War, and we saw the trenches 
and stood where the Bulgar General Staff* directed the action, 
and went over the burnt ruins of the tower fired by the Greeks 
after the battle in very cold blood. Near by, an enormous camp 
of Serb refugees from Asia and Thrace ; the little boys tried to 
sell us bullets and shells, and the old women begged from us, 
and the calm of the whole scene was very impressive. 



To the Same. 

Tchukes, Albania 

June 20, 1914. 

After Salonica we got off to Monastir. It is a nice little 
Turkish country town in the middle of a large plain with 
mountains all round. I stayed there one day only, and in the 
morning went to see the battlefield. It is a very good sight, 
and the most of the fighting took place on a very high hill, 
wooded in its lower reaches and bare on the top. The Turks 
had nearly trenched it, and were driven from position to position 
by the Serbs. It is curious to see the trenches dug while the 
Serbs advanced. Sometimes they are little scrapings with 
the bayonet simply and just dug up by a man to protect 
himself for the moment, sometimes rather more elaborate. 
The fighting went on for about three days. Below in the 
100 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

plain there are very heavy marshes across which the Serb 
army had to advance. Some of them stayed there about 
twenty-six hours, in winter too. They are tough devils. 

From Monastir I headed my descent into Albania. This 
has so far consisted of two days' ride to a place called Koritza 
and two days' ride from Koritza on the way to a place called 
El Bassan, which I don't suppose I shall ever get to as the road 
is closed. The first day I had to make in a carriage with an 
attendant Serbian official who was to sort of bear-lead me — a 
rather tiresome little man. I don't like their jacks in office. 
The man of these parts if once he is educated is inclined to go 
downhill in character and more still in charm. He gets into 
the slouch-hat stage of civilization and loses his interest for the 
European sentimentalist busybody and also some real qualities. 
We went to a place called Stenia on a lovely crystal blue lake, 
Lake Presbra, with beautiful brown rocky hills all round except 
on the Monastir side, where there is a plain full of poplars like 
all the flat country here, and rather reminding one of France. 
We were met by a Serbian officer, in command of the little 
detachment there, and he made the soldiers do their little 
dances for us. They consisted in little crab-like steps with 
the men in a ring all round a gentleman who played bagpipes 
in the middle, and were very racy of the soil. The Serbian 
peasant seems a genial and very gay individual, always smiling 
and friendly. He is said to be capable of great latent cruelty. 
We had a very friendly meal. The Serbs do not, happily, try to 
commit one to political opinions. The next day I went on along 
the side of the lake through even more pretty country, first 
great oakwoods, then rocky hills covered with a lot of scrub 
and sort of wild box shrub, which is very pretty, and occasional 
great carpets of flowers. This day we had to ride practically all 
the time. I left my Serb friend on the Greco-Serb frontier, for 
we had to go through a little bit of Greece before entering the 
promised land. He wanted to come with me into Albania, but 
I knocked that on the head, saying that he would compromise 
me, which he would have done. I then, when it was a question 
of going through Greece, told him that he had better not, as he 

iei 



Charles Lister 

might compromise me there also. He was not a bad little 
fellow, but I had had enough of him. 

At the frontier it was rather exciting. I wondered very 
much if I was going to get through. They sat me down in 
a little tent on a sort of floor of boxwood, and there I drank 
coffee and smoked cigarettes in suspense, while they had to go 
and find their officer, which seemed to be ages. It looked as 
if I would have to beat a humiliating retreat, which would have 
much pleased my Serbian friends, for they all said that I should 
be stopped for sure ; they want to make out that this country 
is in high disorder and cannot run itself. After about half 
an hour I was let through amid tremendous demonstrations of 
Anglo- Albanian fraternization. They told me about "Sultan 
Wild," and what blighters the Greeks were, and how much they 
liked the English. 

I rode into Koritza very happy, and stayed with a missionary 
there, a nice man full of politics with a jolly little wife. My 
head reels with all they told me about the linguistic question 
in Epirus and the state of mind of those unfortunate people 
who didn't want to be Albanians and thought they were 
Greeks, and so on. The next morning I saw the Prefect, 
the Bishop, the President of the Court of Appeal, and a curious 
old monk who had been at Mount Athos, a singular example 
of the unfertile type of intellect produced by monasticism com- 
bined with that diseased nationalism which is a feature of 
every one's mentality out here. He also breakfasted with us 
next morning. The church at Koritza is lovely — built about 
1707, but at first sight one would take it for a twelfth-century 
church. This is a real sign how far back this jolly country 
is. At first sight one wouldn't think so at Koritza. The 
country is flat ; from the rock which forms the frontier into 
new Greece one sees a huge expanse of very well-cultivated 
plain. There are a number of very educated French- and 
English-speaking Albanians, full of modern notions ; clever 
men, I should think. Then one sees lots of people unarmed, 
and the first impression is of a very quiet country-side. One 
can hardly believe that the Greeks were street-fighting in 
102 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

the town as lately as April ; it is almost disappointing — 
one expects mountains rugged as one has never seen before, 
and so on. 

From Koritza it was a jolly ride to a little place called 
Pogratetch, at the top of Lake Ochrida, which is a huge bit 
of water where they pull out very good trout, through the same 
quiet sort of country — oakwoods on all the hills, or rather oak 
scrub. They never let a tree grow here, it is always cut down 
for firewood. To-day another lovely ride along the side of 
Lake Ochrida. Our escort passed the time shooting the fishes 
from their horses, which we could see in the jolly limpid water 
as we went along. After about three hours along the lake, 
the wildest hills, rock and boxwood, with herons sitting on the 
tops of the " crags " in suitable attitudes, we went up and over 
a sort of pass into the plain of the Shumbi Valley. The Shumbi 
is a jolly river — rapid, with banks steep down into the water, 
red soil. We crossed the Shumbi, and are now in a little sort 
of rest-house. I am in a room like a prison and lying on 
matting, my bed for to-night. I am afraid I shall have to 
go back from here. There are insurgents within a few hours 
of us. I wanted to go on and made a scene. They said that 
I did so on my own responsibility and they will give me no 
escort. I think I shall funk it. They expect definite informa- 
tion to-morrow, and I shall act accordingly. I am sorry for 
this unfortunate country, still more so for those who lOve it. 
It has too many neighbours and too few friends. The hero 
of a Henty novel would no doubt at once take command of 
these people and lead them against the enemy's positions. But 
I shan't, and I am sure it is the last thing they would like. Letra 
and the rest of them wish to make out a case for the view 
that Albania should in the first instance have been partitioned 
between herself and Greece. Well, we will see. 

Later. — They (i.e. the authorities) begged me not to go beyond 
Tchukes. My kavass, after kicking a good deal, expressed great 
hesitation, so I funked it. Twenty hours' travelling yesterday 
finds me ba:k here. Yesterday I started at four, got to the 
Serb frontier on horseback by 6.30, and to Straga about nine ; 

103 



Charles Lister 

carriage there to Monastir ; two breakdowns and a walk or two, 
to and from places where fresh carriages available. It's the 
strenuous life. All over now. I am sorry. I am quite 
Albanoman, though I doubt their vaunted fighting qualities. 
These people at Tchukes and the insurgents opposed to them 
will sit opposite each other indefinitely. Then the authorities 
will bring a gun up and the rebels will scatter. The men I 
talk to of the Tchukes " force " said they meant to impress 
the rebels by superior strength but not to fight them ! The 
drilled peasant is really the best fighter, I should think, not 
the "wild man." 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Therapia, 

July 5, 1914. 

Our life here has been very agreeable, with a lot of riding 
and not too much work. I nearly had one nasty jar : my horse, 
whom I was taking up a little bank, swerved into the fence, and 
I got my head entangled in brambles right round my neck. I 
was nearly pulled off, but not quite, and came back home with 
a line of blood round the neck as if some one had cut the head 
off and replaced it. The people I passed on the way home 
turned pale at this ghoulish sight. 

The Admiral has now left us ; his visit was a success, I 
think, and the Heir-Apparent went on board his ship. This 
was a score over the Germans, whom he did not visit. He was 
nearly drowned in endeavouring to get on board, as the sea 
was very rough, and his launch captain very incompetent. I 
unhappily missed the Sultan at dinner ; they did not know 
when I should be back from the " wilds." Sultey was in great 
form ; he guffawed loudly when the Ambassador remarked 
the dining-room was very large, and a second time when the 
Ambassador asked him if he ever dined alone there. The food 
and wines were, I am told, mediocre. The Admiral got a 
150-guinea watch for his pains and a portrait of the Heir- 
Apparent in a silver frame. Sultey is very interested in 
King George's health, and always asks for it. 
104 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

The Gerrys last night gave a very notable festa in their won- 
derful garden. We went up through a beautifully lit tunnel on 
to a terrace high up, and sat on carpets under pine-trees by the 
light of Japanese lanterns, and listened to wonderful Greek 
singers, who sang songs in which they had to bleat like sheep ; 
occasionally a basso very profondo gave tongue in fine style. 
Very like a scene from the Decameron, if not so lascivious, with 
nice little boys to play with. I think this was a sort of house 
warming. 

The new Adviser to the Ministry of Justice is staying with 
us — a young barrister. Eton and Oxford, a high mind, and a 
profound knowledge of the Insurance Bill. What other quali- 
fications could you want for inspiring respect in the Turkish 
mind ? He is a very nice fellow. 

We have given dinner to the Ambassador. The German 
Ambassadress, who is a great friend of my housemate, Hugh 
Thomas, was the chief clou, and everything went very well. 

I think this is all the Therapia news. I am afraid it is 
hardly scandalous enough for the jaded palate of the Lon- 
doner. I am principally kept informed of the London news 
by the " Letters of Eve " which appear in the Taller weekly. 
I am much interested to hear that political feeling is running 
high. 

To the Same. 

Therapia, 

July 12, 1914. 

There is a writing paper famine in this house, so I shall have 
to keep a very straight line across the page. There is also a 
famine in events, as this place is very much the " cool sequestered 
vale of life," and the summer doings of a small, intimate, and 
not very interesting society require the subtle handling of a 
Jane Austen. 

I have to sell my pony. There is no help for it. I am so 
full of work, as I have to know all about Kurds and Armenia, 
things which are at present the merest names to me ; and I am 
also taking on proprio motu (?) an endeavour to get hold 

105 



Charles Lister 

of what anthropological information our Consuls possess. I 
am writing them a circular which they will, I am afraid, think a 
monument of insolence, and probably throw into the waste- 
paper basket, if such things exist in Kurdistan. So I won't 
ride enough to keep my dear pony, and as I rather want cash 
he will have to go. 

I am reading Sir C. Eliot's work on Turkey. It is an extra- 
ordinary work, and the lucidity with which he deals with the 
various heresies in the Eastern Church, and the migration of the 
Turkish tribes is quite amazing. The riddle to me of the history 
of the East is the ethnical kinship, quite indisputable, of the 
Sultans of Stamboul and the Mogul of India. In things like 
appreciation of the arts they are as far apart as — say — the 
Southend-on-Sea Town Council of to-day and the Signory of 
Florence of the Middle Ages. However, they were both 
nomads and dwellers in tents, as can be seen from the 
Mogul buildings. Here they were such copy-cats, and simply 
added the minaret to the Byzantine church. 

It is extraordinary to see their women-folk out on a day's 
pleasure, quite happy just sitting in the grounds in the shade 
resting from the long day's march over the hot desert in 
their subconscious selves, I suppose nomads still in spirit — a 
curious contrast to the English who on the occasion I'm 
thinking of were out also for a day's pleasure, and getting them- 
selves hot and thirsty playing cricket in the glaring sun. I like 
the looks of the Turkish women with their soft darkling eyes 
and neat little features, and clean, clear complexions. They 
look so full of inward peace, and so cherished and cared for ; 
they have also the charm of great seriousness — at least in 
appearance — and of that certain knowledge of what their part is 
in life. I don't believe you, any of you, have. They are a contrast 
to the Slav woman. The Slav looks on his womenfolk simply 
as drudges ; they mayn't marry before they've given so 
many years of work in the fields. When they do marry they 
are wizen-like old crab-apples and haven't a trace of looks. 
The Turk, who is a gentleman, does look after his women, and 
if he isn't chivalrous at least, in a mild way, invests them with 
106 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

some kind of glamour. I'm not sure women aren't really 
happier if they live in the Oriental way. I doubt if the West is 
really much of a gainer from the freedom its women enjoy. 
However, I don't suppose you'd always like to be dressed like 
the women on that postcard sitting by the tombs. 

We have been much thrilled by an hour spent at one of the 
Sultan's mosques on the opposite shore, a glorious building of 
pink marble and stone, with great palatial rooms built on a 
little eminence by the sea covered with trees, with a wonderful 
view down the Bosphorus. It is about a hundred years old, 
built at the time of the treaty of [illegible] with the Russians. 
We are at present very bien with the German Ambassadress, 
who has twice dined with us. She is a charming woman, a 
master at tennis, and a tall, queenly, "perfect lady" type, which 
I rather like — a lot to say for herself. What an awful tragedy 
about dear Denny Anson. That rugged charm and viking 
spirit and glorious laugh. I liked him because I also felt he was 
doing the sort of things I should have liked to have done, but 
hadn't the nerve and will to do — and he was such a powerful 
swimmer. One's circle grows constantly narrower. 

To the Same. 

Therapia, 

July 20, 1914. 

How curious it is that deaths nowadays always cause 
emblements among the survivors. At least three recent 
ones that I know of have done so and been the cause of 
the breaking up of life-long friendships. I believe we have 
subconsciously harked back to the point of view of the witch- 
doctor, and that we also think if any one dies some one of 
his neighbours is personally responsible. If we accepted S. G.'s 
views on life and death, it would never be so. We, however, 
are an irreligious crowd, and have not even the fine fatalism 
of the Moslem. I am sure it is this want of religion which 
makes people so often squabble like ghouls at the grave- 
head. 

107 



Charles Lister 

Let us leave these sad subjects and get back to the 
wooded heights and brilliant blue of the Bosphorus. We all 
went a swimming party one day with the Germans, the 
Ambassador and Ambassadress. Some of us rode and the 
others went by mouche. It was a jolly day, and my first 
bathe since here. The Bosphorus itself is always agitated 
into tiresome little waves which fall into one's mouth, so one 
has to go out practically to the Black Sea for real pleasure. 
Also the current is so strong that it is impossible to swim 
up ; one must go down. I have had several bathes since, 
and on one occasion nearly left my Chancery keys — vital 
to the Empire — at the place where I was undressing. As 
much as my place was worth. I should have then had 
to bury myself in Gisburne and to become a master of 
hounds. 

I have dined with the American Ambassador, a spread of 
about fourteen courses, the aerated waters coulaient & fiots, but 
the wine was less facile. Brotherly love was, howbeit, much 
in the ascendant. I sat next the Danish Minister, the fortu- 
nate husband of a lovely lady. He is like all Scandinavians, 
but we have identical views as to the value of exercise, and 
are both confirmed opponents of the cold bath : that is the 
type who has produced Ibsen. We have nothing so obvious 
to revolt against. After dinner I talked to his wife. 

I must get up now, as I have to buy a cowboy hat for 
the bal costumi — it's the same world all over, and no far cry 
from the Tiber to the Bosphorus. 

Charles Buxton mentioned in the following letter was the eldest son of 
Lord Buxton. At nineteen he inclined so strongly to Socialism as to be 
claimed as a convert. After devoted work for the working men's college 
alluded to he put his theories into practice on a small holding. He was 
farming at Wye when he died at twenty-two. To Mrs. Hamlyn Charles 
Lister confided at Constantinople his hope that his own experience of 
Socialism would bear fruit in his life, expanded as it was by life abroad. 
-B. W. C. 



108 



Constantinople — Pre- War 

To Mrs. Hamlyn. 

Therapia, 

July 25, 1914. 

Many thanks for your charming letter. I was very much 
attached to Charles Buxton, but had no idea he was so devoted 
to the simple life. He was always serious-minded, of course. 
I fancy his handling of the Ruskin College difficulties was very 
able and inspired great respect. 

" We " in my letter was myself and my Albanian kavass — 
a jolly old fellow who had been with Aubrey Herbert. 

Our life here has gone on very peacefully. We give 
occasional dinner parties, which have generally been fairly 
successful, and by dint of frequent emblements we manage to 
keep our cook pretty well up to the mark. Lobster and lamb 
are rather frequent features in the bill of fare. But Therapia is 
not in itself a land of great plenty : and its lobsters are certainly 
almost, I should think, the equals of the Clovelly patriarchs. 

I am now installed in my own rooms, with my books round 
me, but little more done : I feel a real nomad nowadays, and 
never think it worth while to do more than get the most 
hurried traces of myself into my surroundings. After all, "the 
world is a bridge, pass over it but build no house there " ; 
much more so Therapia. I am in a state of continual dissatis- 
faction at the little I manage to get read and the little I get to 
know about this fascinatingly perplexing country, which I 
never want to leave, but am otherwise very happy and 
interested. 

We are, by the time you get this, probably in the thick of a 
most difficult time abroad. Serbia and Austria aux prises, and 
a conflict raging which it will be most difficult to localize. 
Every one here seems to think war is certain. The Austrian 
Note is worded in such a way as to make its acceptance by 
Servia impossible. It is a very strong order. This moment, 
from Austria's point of view, is a good one. The longer she 
waits the worse it will be for her. 



109 



Charles Lister 

No more for the present, dear Mrs. Hamlyn. Write me some 
more gossip. I wish I had some here for you, but we are all 
so well behaved. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Therapia, 

July 27, 1914. 

Here our excitements have been principally political. 
It is a good moment for the Austrians. If they wait, Serbia 
will have time to consolidate herself in her new territories ; 
Russia will be more ready for war than she is now ; Serbia 
may manage to patch up an agreement with Bulgaria ; their 
own internal difficulties may increase in other directions. It is 
the first time the Austrians have taken a really strong line 
since the beginning of the Balkan War. The Russians here 
were very much surprised. The Germans think the war will be 
localized, i.e. the Russians will accept their slap in the face and 
do very little for their Serbian friends. The Russian Ambassa- 
dor's language has been so far very mild. I confess I do not 
see how the Russians can take it lying down, and if they once 
come in, the possibilities are endless. It will be curious to see 
whether the Germans will make use of these events as an 
opportunity for aggressive war against Russia. 

Anti-Russian feeling is at present very strong in Germany. 
The Austrians have got their tails up, and the Secretaries 
here seem very happy at the turn events have taken. I saw 
the Austrian Ambassadress yesterday. She is English and 
charming ; she will have three sons at the war. It is curious 
to see all our newspapers taking the side of Austria. I don't 
think the Austrians could have taken any other course, and on 
the merits of the case I am for the Austrians. We shall, how- 
ever, look rather foolish if we have ultimately to range ourselves 
either diplomatically or otherwise, against Austria, and this is 
not unlikely, considering our general orientation, so our Press 
should have been more non-committal. 

Otherwise life has been much as usual. We are now in 
1 10 



Constantinople— Pre- War 

Ramazan, the great fasting month. Moslems don't eat or 
drink all day, then at sunset they fall to and feast all the 
night. I fancy they sleep most of the day. I don't think this 
rule is very generally observed ; but people like the caiquejev, 
the men who row one's boat, are inclined to be pious, and it is 
a bad thing to work them very much. 

The Grand Vizier gave a party to celebrate an anniversary 
of the Constitution a little while ago. It was a very remarkable 
show. The American Ambassador rubbing shoulders with the 
Emirs of Mecca, and the villa by the Bosphorus, with its 
Western exterior, its pseudo-Arabesque Alhambra-like recep- 
tion-rooms and its garden arranged like an open-air cafe" 
concert. Nowhere else do you get these contrasts and this 
meeting of East and West. 

I played cricket the other day, and made one run in the first 
innings and three in the second, four more than I expected to 
make, I can tell you. Even cricket, when little children in 
those delightful baggy trousers and their fezzes stroll across 
the ground, and you see the peasants working at the hay- 
stacks with their great red cummerbunds round their 
stomachs, and there are real buffaloes, like the Indian ones, 
cropping the grass hard by or cooling themselves in the water 
with only their shiny black flat backs showing over the surface, 
or perhaps the point of a curved horn, has a charm of its own. 
Tennis with the Germans is the great Sunday afternoon occupa- 
tion ; then the German colony is seen in all its glory. It 
largely consists of the daughters of former dragomans, fine 
wenches with a powerful drive down the court and honest 
mddchen features and colouring. One can imagine their seduc- 
tion seriatim by Goethe. I wonder if he would have had such 
success in any other country. They have a lovely garden with 
little grass valleys and lily-covered ponds. 



1 1 I 



V 

LETTERS FROM CONSTANTINOPLE 

Charles was too ardent and energetic to endure patiently what he 
describes elsewhere as the " leaden calm of Therapia " during the fateful 
days of early August. War was a Fact. The sight of others leaving Con- 
stantinople to take an active part in the struggle was too much for him, 
and whilst seeing some friends off, homeward bound, he could not resist 
the impulse to remain on board. He regretted the rash step as soon as he 
had taken it, and returned by the quickest route to his post. His longing 
to get to England and into the righting line was only strengthened by this 
escapade, and he did not relax his efforts till he had obtained the consent 
of the Foreign Office to his request for leave to join the Army. — B. W. C. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Therapia, 

August 4, 1914. 

I wish I was you in the thick of it ; we are very newsless and 
postless here, and have very little idea of what England is going 
to do. So far we seem to have sat on the fence rather, and to 
be very much offering pills for the earthquake when we put 
forward our little mediation proposals, etc. 

Why this paper, you will ask? I am doing an enforced trip 
on this old boat, not having been nippy enough while seeing 
people off. It is rather a bore, but I shall see Smyrna and get 
back to Constantinople without loss of time. It is also nice 
resting, doing the journey third-class. Here they simply put up 
an awning over the bows and let the people shift for themselves 
then. The people have their luggage with them, consisting of 
bed-clothes and a little trunk, and they put them out anywhere. 
I, who did not take any clothes with me, find myself at a dis- 
1 12 



Letters from Constantinople 

advantage and rather like the Son of Man ; but I lead quite 
a pleasant pillar-to-post existence in this glorious sunshine 
looking at the coasts of the ^Egean islands and the coasts of 
Asia opposite. It is an extraordinary mixed crowd, mostly 
Ottoman Greeks who are trying to escape the Turkish 
mobilization. They sing in a weary sing-song nasal tone all 
the day. They have some of them got gramophones which 
coin the same sort of sounds. A more picturesque element 
is provided by the numerous [illegible] who appear in a long 
voile sort of dressing-gown and with sashes, or striped white 
and yellow, white and red tunics, and then little head capes 
with great knotted strings round the top, in black and gold. 
Then there are Central Asians with their little flower-em- 
broidered skull-caps and snub-noses and Mongolian eyes ; and 
the sea and sun reconcile me to almost anything, even to 
sitting about in dirty little corners of a third-class. You should 
see the state of my white ducks after these adventures — 
discreditable in the main but with their lighter side. Don't 
retail them, because I feel culpably vague about the whole 
thing and shall get into hot water on return. 

The people on this boat are most incorruptible without 
exception, and will do nothing for any one or anything. I have 
talked nearly all my languages to-day, including Turkish, with 
great fluency. The calm of all these people is very wonderful, 
and their cheerful submission to discomforts of many kinds ; 
also their ability to sleep in almost impossible positions. 

Therapia life has been peculiar ; nothing to do all day, and 
a few little telegrams morning and evening which are very 
unsatisfactory and give us no real news. Food is very scarce 
and gold more so. I fancy a temporary accommodation is 
being made by the issue of bank-notes. Those who, like 
myself, have overdrafts will be in a jolly position, paying II 
per cent, on them. 

I wonder what the next of the chapter of accidents will be. 
No one feels very happy about the situation just now except 
our American colleague, a fine old German Jew, who declares 
that the Germans will be in Paris in a month's time. In that 

I H3 



Charles Lister 

case it will be rather late for us to do anything by land. We 
should by rights have already begun landing. 

I can write no more — I am depressed. Our position is, and 
always has been, unassailable, but we have not made the most 
of it. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople. 

(No date.) 

I am much relieved that we have come in ; and our state of 
suspense as to whether we were going to do the right thing or 
not was very acute. I believe the Germans thought we were 
for peace at any price and would never dream of chipping in, 
even if they violated Belgian neutrality, which we had always 
told them would constitute a casus belli. 

I feel we are in a very strong position, and even if the 
Germans get to Paris, we and the Russians can continue the 
war till we have crushed Germany. 

The Turks are very cross with us now, and we may all have 
to come home — if the Germans manage to rush them (the 
Turks) into war with Russia. That is now the game ; a dirty 
one and played with characteristic cynicism. 

It is manifest Turkey is faced with certain disaster if she 
makes war on the Triple Entente. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

August 18, 1914. 

I was glad to get your letter. You will, I think, regret going 
to America ; the homing instinct is very strong if one's country 
is in danger, and you will be anxious and newsless over there. 
You can't imagine what a state of suspense we are in here — 
and how wretched we should be if we hadn't plenty of work. 

You have no idea of what they have been doing here to 
compromise the Turks. They have got their warships in ; 
Goeben and Breslau crews and German officers have been 

X 14 



Letters from Constantinople 

harassing our shipping in every possible way. 1 Destroying our 
wireless apparatus, while their own are left intact by the 
Turks, who might by right destroy all wireless in this, a neutral 
port ; requisitioning British cargo for supplies for their army ; 
putting difficulties in the way of our telegraphy or of our 
getting news favourable to us published in the Press, and 
exciting public opinion against the Triple Entente and all 
Christians to such a pitch that the next phase, unless the 
tide turns, will be the preaching of a Holy War against all 
" infidels." 

Sir Louis is just back. He gives an interesting account of 
things at home before Ministers finally decided to do the right 
thing, and of Kuhlmann's intrigues and suggestions that we 
should be content with an assurance that the Germans would 
not bombard Calais and Boulogne. I think no Germans are at 
this moment worth English tears, which I hear were so liberally 
shed by some over the Lichnowskys. Ever since the 1st of July 
Germany had decided on aggressive war against France and 
Russia, and the feigned innocence of the Lichnowskys should 
not find any believers. The Germans here seemed to calculate 
on our neutrality. They were equally confident the Italians 
would go in, and that there would be no difficulty with the 
Belgians. Three big mistakes. You can't imagine our feelings 
those days when it was doubtful what we were going to do. I 
believe the Italians will join us soon ; here they talk as if they 
were at war with Germany already. Then the Roumanians 
will move. What a triumph for Rodd if this happens. We 
may have bad news for the next fortnight or more, as the 
big battles on the Rhine will soon begin, but later on, when the 
Russian steam-roller gets moving, our stock will be up again. 
The morale of the French is at this moment very high, but 
one must at least be prepared for their failure for the moment. 

1 Charles held strongly the view that our Government should not have 
recognized the transfer of the Goeben and the Breslau to Turkey. Once 
we had allowed the purchase of the German ships we could only work 
for a much-to-be-desired rupture between Turkey and the Central 
Powers. — R. 

IIS 



Charles Lister 

We have already gained a fortnight and no German soldiers 
on French territory, and the Russian mobilization has gone 
on quicker than was expected. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

August 20, 19 14. 

You will have all our bad news long before you get this : 
I was personally never very sanguine as to the French resist- 
ance, but I hoped that with ourselves to help them, and after 
the Belgian resistance, that the German advance would at any 
rate have been more delayed than appears to have been the 
case. I fear our part in the big battle has been fine but tragic, 
and I can hear the " beating of the wings " of the Angel of 
Death very near. We have had black weeks before, and lived 
through them, and, as in the days of Napoleon, there is our fleet 
between us and a rapid fall to the status of a second-class 
power, so we can still hold our heads high, and I think we are 
rather at our best in this kind of situation. We are much 
where we were after Austerlitz, though the debacle of our 
Continental allies is not nearly so complete : and we can look 
with faith to our Trafalgar. 

Things here have naturally gone from bad to worse ; German 
sailors arrive by scores, and German merchantmen are being 
fitted out from the German Embassy as auxiliary cruisers to 
have a go the Russians in the Black Sea, it is thought. We 
are simply powerless, and expect to have to pack up any 
day. The Turks are quite tete montee. The Ministers say that 
they know nothing of these batches of German sailors arriving, 
and are in any case wholly impotent. The Bulgarian attitude 
is hitherto doubtful, but likely to incline to Germans after their 
successes. If we stay here we are likely to be faced by a 
serious shortage of foodstuffs. We are all, however, very 
cheerful and busy. 

We have, I fear, missed the chance of getting Italy in to 
join us. If the French had made a firm offer of Tunis at 
LI 1 6 



Letters from Constantinople 

the outset we might have got them. The French, however, 
thought they were going to win, and made evasive promises, 
and the Italians are now going to get all they want from 
their past allies without stirring a finger — simply as the price 
of neutrality. However, " Come the whole world in arms." 

It is a good thing that one hasn't much time to think and 
wonder what the tranquil existence of the subject of a second- 
class Power would be like. I shouldn't like it myself, because I 
feel my life very much bound up with my flag. 

I am very anxious for Diana, whom I love second best in 
the world — what she must be suffering now. However, she's 
not the only one. 

I wonder about the future — I do not feel this war will 
make any one better friends afterwards. We shall take the 
German colonies, I suppose, and as the Germans cannot forgive 
us for the colonies we have already got, it is doubtful if they 
will forgive us the more for having collared theirs. Then 
there is the embittering role that the Press plays in all mix-ups 
with its polemics as to atrocities and so on. I fancy no peace 
will be of a very lasting character. We shall go on fighting, 
and finally sicken the working classes of the whole performance. 

The Germans now take the line that they will make peace 
with the French, conduct a "platonic" war with ourselves, 
and then unite us all against the Russians ; this is very fanciful. 

Europe an armed camp for years, broken up, dissolved in 
final ruin and revolution by those who have long suffered ; 
it isn't a cheerful picture. But love seems for the moment 
to have fled the world. 



To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

August 24, 1914. 

One rapid line amid the hurry of these days, just before 
the mail goes in the middle of all this trouble — we never 
know when we have a post out and so on. . . . 

117 



Charles Lister 

The reports of a French reverse in the neighbourhood of 
Metz are, I fear, correct, but the French say it is an 
incident de guerre, and will not make any substantial dif- 
ference to their plan of campaign. The Germans are happy 
and drinking champagne, but the Russians have begun their 
offensive and have invaded Eastern Prussia and will soon 
get the blighters on the run. 

Yesterday I went to my first Baisans, the month of feasting 
after the fasting month of Ramazan. It is a great reception 
held by the Sultan in the big hall at the palace, an enormous 
high room, with a colossal chandelier hanging from the centre 
point of the dome all hideously painted with still life and 
perspective effects with great plaster pilasters. The Sultan 
sits on a large sort of seat like the woolsack, covered with cloth 
of gold, and the notables come up ; some of them kiss a sort 
of stole with tassels held by the Master of Ceremonies ; 
others, more distinguished, such as the Sheriff of Mecca's 
representatives and the Sheik al Islam, actually kiss his 
coat. As the Sultan comes in and goes out a shout is raised 
which means " Long life to our Sultan ; yet there is God 
greater than him " : it is now quite undistinguishable and all 
the time a band plays barbaric music, great clashes of cymbals 
and banging of brass. On the floor there are little strips of 
carpet for people to walk up, quite dowdy. The religious 
heads, the Sheik al Islam and the Mecca people are the real 
feature. The Sultan gets up for them, and for the Patriarch 
he advances about a yard towards the edge of a carpet, cloth 
of gold, in front of the throne. He is like a great egg, and 
sits half-right or half-left as the case may be, on the edge 
of the throne, with his hands tightly crossed in his lap. His 
whole chest and tummy are gold lace. He can walk slowly 
and get up on to his feet, but is otherwise not very mobile. 
The people who went up to him backed out of the presence, 
and then lined the sides of the hall. 

The situation here since the Ambassador's return is rather 
easier. Enver has been laid up and the Grand Vizier is 
recovering power, but the military authorities, under German 
1 18 



Letters from Constantinople 

influence, continue to be most insolent. 1 They actually 
threatened to take down the wireless on the Italian and 
U.S. Embassy Stationnaires while they let German ships 
keep it up all the time. From the way they talk to the 
Ambassador one would think they were conquerors imposing 
terms on a conquered enemy. But we are being very patient. 
Otherwise we should be playing the German game. 

To the Hon. Lady Wilson. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

August 24, 1914. 

Many thanks for your last letter, which I had not answered 
yet owing to the wear and tear of these last few days, and 
the immense deal of work involved by the machinations of 
the Germans here. They are determined to drag the Turks 
in on their side, and through their military mission induce them 
to commit every conceivable breach of neutrality, with a 
view to forcing us to declare war on Turkey. We are very 
patient, and do all in our power to allow for the con- 
solidation of the moderate element in the Cabinet which in 
distinction to Enver, who is the villain of the piece, is 
desirous, at any rate for the moment, to maintain a genuine 
neutrality. 

The mobilization, Enver's work, has caused untold misery. 
The soldiers, called up for the fourth time within three years, 
cannot be fed, armed, or clothed. They openly state they 
will desert at the first opportunity — to be fed. They beat 
recalcitrants in the gendarmerie stations, and even flog their 
female relations if they suspect them of concealing their 
male relations from the authorities. 

Anti-English feeling runs very high. It is sedulously 
fomented by the Germans, to whom our detention of the 

1 Enver Pasha, as everybody knows, was the dominant military 
authority in Constantinople and had received his military training in 
Germany. He became War Minister in Turkey at the time of the Young 
Turk revolution. To his influence more than any other we owe our 
rupture with the Turks in 1914. — R. 

119 



Charles Lister 

Turkish ships has given a great opportunity. Since Sir 
Louis came back the situation has been easier. 

Elsewhere, as far as one can tell, German diplomats have 
drawn blank after blank, which is very satisfactory to my 
much abused profession. Events so far, except for the 
French reverse in Lorraine, have panned out better than we 
expected. 

Our " bloomer " in not catching the Goeben is locally almost 
disastrous, but will not have much general effect on the 
course of the war. She is of course only Turkish in name. 
Our fear is that if 'the Turks become at war with us, the 
Germans will take her into the Black Sea with other merchant 
ships they are fitting out here as sort of privateers. 

How disgracefully they behaved to the Empress Marie and 
the Grand Duke Constantine. Serves the latter right, as he 
was leader of a pro-German party at the Russian Court. 

We are all hard up here, but very happy. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 6, 1914. 

One line to say that I am well, happy, and very hard-worked 
whole day, and no time for riding or swimming expeditions. 
The work is entirely cyphering, and cheered only at intervals 
by news telegrams. Otherwise we only hear German news, and 
you know what that is. I much admired the Premier's speech 
at the Guildhall ; it was a magnificent piece of real oratory, and 
most elevated in sentiment. I am glad he has been of the 
hauteur to see what we are really fighting for, and how we 
must win. We have, of course, a magnificent position. 

I am afraid the war will last a long time, as we shall have to 
wear the Germans down by degrees. The German Ambassador 
here says they have food for three years. I don't think this 
can be true, but no doubt it will take a long time to starve 
them out. 

No time for more. 
120 



Letters from Constantinople 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 6, 1914. 

Here we live in an atmosphere of lies and violently stirred 
up anti-English feeling. The prospects of actual war with 
Turkey seem to be rather diminishing, but the violations of 
neutrality are just as flagrant as ever. As the Prime Minister 
said, we must "take long views," as we can be satisfied with 
no partial victory. I fancy that the war on two fronts will by 
degrees force the Germans back within their frontiers. I think 
it will then be very difficult to make any serious impression on 
them, as their forts are strong and our artillery not so good as 
theirs. However, we shall wear them down and starve them 
out by degrees. I cannot speak of the sack of Louvain. Even 
if the population had fired on them they could surely have 
destroyed the houses where the fire came from and the principal 
culprits ; but to sack all the churches, old buildings, etc., is a 
disgrace, even on their own showing, of the deepest dye. They 
are the Huns of Europe, and I only hope they will be treated 
as such and that the Cossacks will not forget. How can one 
reconcile these vile buccaneers with the kind of German one 
knows? What do they think in America? The Americans 
here are very bien pensant and anxious for us to beat the 
Germans. The German Ambassador runs about the quay and 
the hotels waving a newspaper and shouting victory. It will 
be a curious world after this war — very little money about, I 
should think, and hardly any to spend on fun ; I don't see 
myself hunting for a long while to come — I don't, in fact, see 
myself home for some time. I simply can't be spared now ; and 
while our relations with Turkey are uncertain they won't send 
out any one else, I don't suppose. The Ambassador is splendid ; 
he learns up the names of his ships like a schoolboy, and he is 
going to take the Belgian Minister into the Embassy when we 
go back to Pera. 



121 



Charles Lister 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 13, 1914. 

Six weeks of war, and are the Germans yet in Paris ? 

Here things go on much as usual. But the Turks are still 
convinced that the Germans will win, and they will stick to this 
conviction till the signing of the treaty of peace. They were 
just the same in their own war, and did not think they'd been 
beat till the Bulgarians were actually at Tchataldja. Of course 
it was different in the case of the Ministers, but the general 
public, I mean — and Ministers with regard to this war are more 
or less in the same position as the general public with regard to 
the other war. 

The Turks are not even impressed by the reports of India's 
response — which is very remarkable ; it must be due to the 
visit of the Crown Prince. One should organize tours of 
German royalty in England and the colonies, and then people 
get to know what the Germans really are. Did you see 
Goschen's dispatch reporting on his last days at Berlin and 
the Emperor's " apology " for the demonstration which took 
place outside the Embassy ? It is an extraordinary document. 
I think our friend Jagow must be genuinely sorry for all this, 
and especially for the breach with England. The diplomacy of 
the war on the German side has been mismanaged — but not, I 
think, his fault ; I fancy the Emperor did the whole thing 
during this big crisis. He is a marvel with his telegrams 
about God. 

All my sisters by degrees will have their husbands fighting, 
and Percy must have already done a lot ; I hope he will get a 
V.C. or something. 

The Turks are less warlike ; they have abolished certain 
commercial and judicial privileges of foreign subjects ; and it is 
thought that this is in reality a peaceful move, as now they can 
show the public some results for their mobilization and are 
therefore not under the necessity of risking a war with some one 
132 



Letters from Constantinople 

— a war which only a few swollen heads like Enver really 
want, and which the civil element in general is determined 
to avert. 

The Ambassador thinks about nothing but what he can do 
for the war and doing little kindnesses all round. Heaven 
knows one can do little enough in what is, after all, a backwater 
at this moment. It does not really matter if the Turks do go 
to war. It will only mean their own break up, or at best their 
becoming a sort of German dependency. However, here we are 
with our job, to keep them neutral, and we mean to see 
it through. 

How vilely all my old associates, Keir Hardie and Co., 
are behaving. 

Our life here has been extraordinary — in German territory 
practically, and nothing but German news for a long time. 
After that awful fighting round Mons down to St. Quentin we 
really thought our army had been vernichtet, so you can 
imagine our feelings. Luckily we've had so much work that we 
haven't had time to think. Now we are a sort of bureau de 
presse and fill the Pera papers with our news. Why is it im- 
possible to have a gentlemanly war with the Germans ? The 
lies they tell in their foul Press, their low behaviour here — the 
German Ambassador running round to the hotels and shouting 
victory in the streets — the ungraciousness of their whole way of 
looking at things makes one feel very bitter. No one likes the 
Germans any better after having fought them. The French 
and Russians did like each other better after the Crimea. 
Ourselves and the French at least left each other's throats with 
a feeling of mutual respect. But these cads ! I cannot reconcile 
them with the Germans I have liked. What a dreadful 
tragedy about Archer Clive. Really what that family has 
suffered : but it must in a way be a fine thing to have some link 
with the hosts of great spirits who have witnessed to our 
national greatness and are in a sense England triumphant while 
our warfare is still here ; and at such moments / feel the one- 
ness of the nation with its dead — and those who will die in this 
war die for righteousness and will be thanked for ever by the 

123 



Charles Lister 

little nations for whom they have secured a free existence, 
un menaced by powerful and interfering neighbours. 

So you will be in London ; think of me here sometimes : my 
plans are luckily very much fixed up — till they can spare me 

from here. Then One feels here that one is doing so very 

little, and resents the sort of artificial denationalized position 
the diplomat has to submit to : it is merely position ; one's 
character is more nationalized than ever. 

The good news, our own and the Russian, has made us very 
happy — and happy for many things. One can hardly put 
into words the sort of thankfulness — that after all people are 
found whose policy is not simply a question of interest, and 
who value that intangible essence, unseen save at rare moments 
like the Holy Grail — the Nation's honour. 

After all, what would the Belgians have suffered materially 
if they had let the Germans through ? It is quite possible 
the Germans would have kept their word and retired after peace. 
It was the idea of the desecration of the streets of their 
beautiful old towns, where the guilds of the Middle Ages built 
their cathedrals. 

To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 20, 1914. 
Many thanks for your capital letter. I remember well what 
Reggy 1 and Mallet always said about Germany. We always 
imagined that the war would begin with an attack on England 
with the object of destroying the British Fleet : events rather 
show that England was not the first objective ; more than that, 

1 Charles carried on a faithful correspondence with his aunt, the Hon. 
Beatrix Lister. She had been trained, as few are, to appreciate the 
complex problems of European diplomacy. Her constant correspon- 
dence with her brother, Sir Reginald Lister, and her frequent visits to 
him at his various posts, had quickened her interest in the wide issues 
of world politics. Charles found in her sympathy and perception, and 
an understanding attention to everything that touched the career he 
had chosen.— B. W. C. 

124 



Letters from Constantinople 

the Germans, I think, did calculate on our neutrality. It is 
a mercy that we have done the right thing : I doubt if we 
should have, if the Germans had not violated Belgian neutrality. 
As you say, the whole thing was very badly stage-managed. 

I gather from what the German Ambassador has said here, 
etc., that the Germans meant as early as July to declare war 
on Russia and all other comers. I suppose towards the end 
of September the German Ambassador used this sort c 
language after his return from Berlin, when it is probable tha 
the whole thing was discussed : all the other Ambassadors had 
also been summoned home. Then came the Sarajevo murders. 
I think the Germans thought this would be an excellent chance 
to catch the Triple Entente more or less disunited — Russia 
torn between her Slav sympathies and her horror of regicide 
as a general principle ; England sympathizing with Austria 
on this issue, etc. 

She could then declare war on one of the Triple Entente, and 
find the others not ready to " march." The pace was therefore 
rather forced and a crisis hurried by the Austrian Note, a 
document largely drawn up in Berlin. I think Germany was 
out for war all the time, and not out for a mere diplomatic 
success. This was surely already secured — seeing the abject 
tone of the Serbian reply to the Austrian Note. And so we 
have war. I feel rather nervous as to the superior artillery 
of the Germans and this terrible 42-centimetre gun. Perhaps 
we shall not be able to make much impression against the 
German forts ; otherwise, however, I think the situation very 
satisfactory. It will be a long job, and we may have to finish 
them by starving them out ; but we've got them stiff. I some- 
times almost wish we had not got Allies ; there will be em- 
barrassment when we come to making peace, and weak Allies 
may get beaten or give us other anxiety. However, I don t 
suppose an isolated fight against Germany would be practical 
politics — too many people dislike them. I think the war will 
last a long time as far as Germany is concerned. 

Contsantinople is the one place where she has got sympathizers. 
Our holding up these Turkish ships and the arrival of the 

125 



Charles Lister 

Goeben has created a strong feeling in her favour, and the military 
mission have been consequently able to get the whole thing into 
their hands. The Turks are en ntauvaise vote. If the Germans 
win, Turkey will become a sort of German Egypt. If the 
Germans lose, Turkey will have to face the victorious Triple 
Entente Powers in no mood for trifling. The mot of a Belgian 
here now is worth repeating. One of the Ministers said, " J'ai 
une nouvelle pour vous : les Allemands sont entrees a Bruxelles." 
He without a moment's hesitation said, " Excellence, fai une 
nouvelle pour vous : les Allemands sont entre's a Constanti- 
nople." It is the literal truth — they arrive train after train, 
they man the Turkish ships, arm their own merchantmen, sign 
all the Customs instructions, etc. They are, however, getting 
unpopular : Faust is beginning to realize that his bondage 
to Mephistopheles is not an unmixed blessing. I don't think 
the Germans have any definite plan. It is simply fishing in 
troubled waters ; their idea is to hurry the Turks into war 
with some one so that they may ultimately get involved against 
Russia and create a diversion. It is a cynical policy which 
quite disregards Turkish interests. Of the Turks, Enver is 
the villain of the piece. He is swollen-headed and crude, and 
the Germans have promised him Egypt and the Caucasus 
and Salonica. 

PS. — French strategy is hard to understand. I think that 
after his first failure to get through the Germans Joffre's idea 
is a retreat on the Marne, which is very defensible country 
and suitable to the kind of campaign he desires. 



To the Hon. Irene Law ley. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 21, 1914. 

I don't know that very much has happened since my last. 

We have been through a phase of apprehension again, and the 

experts think war is more likely. The German officers are said 

to be making themselves very much disliked and to be even 

126 



Letters from Constantinople 

despised as not knowing their job : they have, of course, told 
the Turks that our officers taught them all wrong. Yesterday 
the German cruiser went out into the Black Sea, and returned 
in the evening. To-day the Goeben has gone out. It is an 
astonishing situation ; the German captain, by molesting one 
of our corn ships en route from the Black Sea, could any day 
put the whole fat in the fire. As you know, our naval officers 
have gone. There have been the usual potins and indiscretions 
in this connection. 

It is curious to see how the people who most liked Germans 
before the war, and who were never out of the German 
Embassy, detest them now. I think they feel they have been 
deceived, and look on them as one looks on some cook who 
has swindled one. I must say it is very hard to reconcile 
the murderers of women and children and the destroyers of 
Dierick Bontses ad lib. with the Germans one knows — the mild 
art critics and inefficient tennis players and comfortable 
bourgeois and governesses. I always rather liked Germans, 
and was very fond of German food and drink ; however, they 
have shown the cloven hoof with a vengeance. 

A few days ago we sent off from here about nineteen 
volunteers, the English colony paying for their passages. 
Sir L. gave them lunch at the Embassy and made them a 
pretty little speech ; we then went down to the boat and 
saw them off. It made one feel very much out of it. The 
honorary attach^ has also gone. He was an old soldier in 
the Scots Greys, who have distinguished themselves. However, 
here we are, in fetters. 

Did you see the Daily Telegraph account of Francis Grenfell's 
performances and the part Bendor and Percy took in the 
affair? Wasn't it splendid — was it true? It sounded almost 
too good, and more like the list of names at some ducal 
week-end. 

I have taken occasional swims, and you will be pleased to 
hear I've got over the Bosphorus. This is not as good as 
Leander's performance ; he swam the Dardanelles. 

Forgive the dullness of this letter. I think the Italians will 



Charles Lister 

come in, but how far they will go beyond occupying the 
Trentino and Trieste depends on many things. How is 
recruiting in the north of England? They are very anti- 
militarist, and none of them would join the Boy Scouts in 
old days. 

To the Same. 

British Embassy, Constantinople, 

September 28, 1914. 

Well, not much this week ; things seem shaping for war, and 
it looks as if the Turks had decided to commit suicide. The 
excitements here leave me quite cold now, as is natural after 
what has been a two-months-long crisis at crisis pressure of 
work. It is not over yet. The Turks have closed the 
Dardanelles — where Leander swam over to visit Hero. I have 
been in a very golf and hunting mood lately, and am sure that 
the life of the " deserving " modern man, with his all-day office 
work, is a rotten thing — that we should have evolved this as our 
highest form of activity is not to our credit. Down with these 
big nations and organizations of business, etc., on the enormous 
scale, and let's have a lot of village communities, each run by 
the squire and the parson, with their heads meeting once a year 
to decide really urgent matters, and let's have no trains. Well, 
it's silly all this, I suppose, and the hands of the clock must 
sweep forward without remorse — unless there are cycles of 
change like Anatole France says in "L'lle des Pingouins." 
There I think we finish up by internal combustion when the 
last word has been said in the organization of industry and the 
enslavement of the working class. 

It has been exciting, that is to say we have been plus ou 
moins on tenterhooks all the time — and are still, though now 
one feels very stolid — but not interesting in the sense that a 
period of constructive diplomacy, concession hunting, or reform 
schemes are interesting, or that a period of things like 
Armenian massacres, which give you a real insight into the 
country and make you learn about its various rules, would 
be interesting. The appeal has been to the game-playing 
JL2.8 



Letters from Constantinople 

instinct rather than the intellect. But it has been splendid, 
and the Ambassador has shown extraordinary nerve and skill. 
He has told the Turks some home truths lately. They are, 
I think, beginning to repent their madness, but are more in the 
hands of the Germans than ever — and the Germans are getting 
impatient. 

Has anything more been heard of John Manners ? I saw he 
was " missing " in the papers. It must be dreadful not to 
know, and still worse to know if the worst has happened. 
We heard at first that Tommy was missing — and this was 
fighting Somalis — but then the next day I think, we heard 
he was killed. 

What a fine performance our Mons retreat was. England 
is silent as the grave, and I get no letters — only hairdressers' 
bills of 1912 for five shillings. 

The hour had struck. Charles's departure at this date from Constanti- 
nople was his conscious farewell to diplomacy. " Diplomacy is dead," 
he wrote to a friend ; and to another who urged that he should remain 
at his post, he said, " The date of my birth determines that I should take 
active service." A via media offered itself repeatedly to Charles, that of 
the Interpreter Service, for which he would have been eminently fitted, 
but this, as will be seen, was three times eluded. He returned to England 
to learn the death in action of his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Percy 
Wyndham, Coldstream Guards, killed in their famous attack at Soupir 
on September 14th. No letters had reached Constantinople. And on his 
return to England Charles wrote none. — B. W. C. 



129 



VI 
WITH THE MIDDLESEX YEOMANRY 

Note by Hon. Lady Wilson 

Immediately on his arrival in England it was arranged that Charles 
should join the ist County of London Yeomanry (Middlesex Hussars) as 
interpreter. Charles's brother-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mathew 
Wilson, C.S.I., had just obtained command of the regiment, and it 
seemed probable that they would shortly be ordered to France. 

It took Charles three days in London in which to collect his uniform, 
kit, and charger, then he joined the regiment at Moulsford, where its 
headquarters were luxuriously lodged in a brick riverside villa. Two or 
three weeks later, whilst Charles's dressing-table was loaded with books to 
enlighten him in the translation of the most obscure military commands, 
an order came from the War Office to the effect that interpreters would 
be provided for units on their arrival in France, so Charles secured a 
commission in the regiment. 

The Adjutant, Captain Neilson, 4th Hussars, was an old friend. He had 
been at the Cavalry School in Rome whilst Charles was at the Embassy, 
and they had had many a good ride together across the stiff timber of 
the Campagna, Charles, according to Captain Neilson, not infrequently 
showing him the way, mounted on a fatigued hireling called Fernando. 

The ist County of London Yeomanry was moved at a few hours' notice 
from their comfortable quarters at Moulsford to the chilling asperity of 
the East Coast. At Moulsford the regiment had a grey shoulder of the 
downs on which to manoeuvre, and the barns of the low-lying Caldecott- 
like villages afforded excellent stabling for the horses. The men had 
first-rate billets, in spite of the Thames valley mud, which motor-cycles 
and remounts churned up everywhere. The news that the regiment was 
to move was not received with enthusiasm. It was on a chilly morning 
in mid-November, after nearly twenty-four hours in a troop train, that the 
Middlesex Hussars reached Mundesley, a village five miles from Cromer. 
Here they settled down to their new role of defending the coast against 
all possible and impossible attack. Charles embarked with ardour on 

130 



Middlesex Yeomanry 

his new task. Some forlorn-looking trenches were dug on the sand cliffs, 
a machine-gun meanwhile doing some smart practice among the seagulls. 
A certain amount of spy-hunting gave spice to the early days at Mundesley, 
but later, when this flagged, the tedium grew intolerable. The different 
squadrons were scattered in surrounding villages, a narrow strip of grass 
which ran along the top of the cliffs was all the unenclosed country 
which could be used for squadron training. Here Charles could drill his 
troops, between the dreary back-gardens of seaside lodging-houses ; 
sometimes, for better fun, his Colonel would be sergeant-major for him. 
The ever-retreating prospect of active service made Charles restive, and 
determined him to seek some way of getting out to the fighting zone. 
Yet, characteristically, he was able to make the best of a bad job : he 
hunted with the local harriers — the ploughed fields and cock fences did 
not come amiss to him, and he crowned a good day with them by jumping 
his Colonel's best charger over a five-barred gate. Another day he was 
found gun in hand tramping after an elusive partridge ; a wordy altercation 
followed, in which Charles succeeded by skilful dialectic in persuading 
the farmer that he was 710/ poaching. — B. W. 



To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley-on-Sea, Norfolk, 

November 24, 1914. 

There is much to amuse us here. 

The local spy-hunter has been always with us, like the poor, 
and has laid all kinds of information against divers persons ; 
the men are always seeing lights being flashed, and on one 
occasion they actually saw two men whom they chased down 
the cliff. Spy-hunting parties go out when these flashes are 
seen, and generally return empty handed. We put in durance 
vile the minions of a German who has a house ideally situated 
for signalling out to sea — he himself had been interned — and 
shut up their women in the kitchen ; myself and Benn searched 
the house and read masses of correspondence, but with no 
result. It was a strange scene — the entrance into the house, 
the lower rooms of which were actually being used by one of 
our patrols ; the men with fixed bayonets bringing to us a large 
smiling woman of the housekeeper type and a young wild-eyed 
girl with fair hair and a sallow complexion, a ward befriended 

131 



Charles Lister 

in loneliness by this family, and the darkness outside. Then the 
search and scrutiny of the correspondence ; our suspect was a 
Salvationist, and we found nothing but notes for sermons, also 
long family letters from relations in Canada and everywhere 
you please, very affectionate, with x x x at the end. The only 
incriminating thing was a picture postcard of the facade of 
Frankfort Station — coloured, too. They are jolly letters : tell 
you how the children are getting on, etc., when they are coming, 
and so forth ; always say they are very busy. The ladies are 
now released ; the men, I fancy, sent to the General, 



To the Same. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley-on-Sea, 

December i, 1914. 

You will be perhaps not surprised to hear that I have got the 
sack, qud interpreter. They have said that all the interpreters 
will now be supplied by the French General Staff, and would 
I accept a commission in the new armies. This I am most 
unwilling to do, as it would mean long waiting before getting 
out anywhere, and so I am trying to get myself a commission 
in this regiment. It is a bore after one had thought it all 
fixed up. 

Last week we were rather hopeful as to our prospects of 
going out, but the latest news from the War Office is not very 
favourable. So we alternate between hope and despondency, 
and life goes on much the same, for now we have almost for- 
gotten that there were such things as invasion scares or spies. 
The riding and jumping has on the whole been great fun, but 
I've been rather lowered lately by a cold and cough. The 
English winter, unless one is hunting all day, is a poor show, 
and I confess to a yearning for the sunny slopes of Rome's 
seven hills ; Isa Chigi's last letter, too, describing the peasants 
going to and from the fattoria laden with grapes, called back 
pictures of days which I am afraid won't return. However, for 
us now England is a necessity. What I feel is that nothing will 
132 



Middlesex Yeomanry 

be the same after, and that our generation will live in a constant 
state of war's alarms and penury, and that fun of any sort or 
kind has left the world. 

To-day I tried to learn the machine-gun. I don't feel that 
I am a very promising pupil, but it is a good thing that as 
many people as possible should know how to work it, and I 
dare say I could manage to get an elementary knowledge. My 
friends are very clever at it. I am not mechanically enough 
minded to be any use at modern warfare and look upon myself 
purely as kanonenf utter. But the East Coast is a long way from 
the German guns. 

The newspapers have nothing in them now ; it seems very 
much as if the winter, on the French side at any rate, would 
be a quiet affair. 

I am going to learn Flemish from one of our troopers. It 
might be useful. 



To the Same. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley-on-Sea, Norfolk, 

December 12, 1914. 

By the way, I'm practically a camp follower myself. I hope 
to get my commission soon in this regiment. We are still 
waiting, and if it was a question of starting afresh I should 
have been a footslogger, but now I've made my niche and 
learnt a little about the job it would be a pity to switch off 
to something else — cavalry is more my stunt — apart from 
rather doing the dirty on the CO., who looks to my lan- 
guages. It's bloody for all that. I suppose we shall go as 
cavalry to Kitchener's army now. It's better for you, knowing 
you can do something for somebody, and you like that, I expect, 
but here one feels one is doing very little for anybody. " La 
diplomatie est niorte" Cambon said, and I feel that will be very 
much the position of dips, for some time. 

We go on in more or less the same rut, enlivened by occa- 
sional rides over leaps and days with the hounds, and depressed 

133 



Charles Lister 

by inefficiency with the revolver and other weapons. They 
have competitions among the men — saddling and unsaddling, 
jumping banks, and going into action, i.e. galloping up over 
a bank en route, dismounting, firing, and then returning. 
They have been a great success, and the Brigadier is delighted 
with us. 

Riding back from the day's finish, the setting sun behind, 
the stars overhead, and the little church-towers at intervals 
on the skyline, war seemed a distant dream and the world 
to be peopled with just one man and his tired horse. My 
khaki tunic and nothing else was there to remind me that 
the same stars looked down on hell let loose in France. Man 
is such a brute to man at this moment, that loneliness and 
isolation seem the only thing ; he comes into contact with his 
fellows solely to inflict and suffer pain. This war knocks out 
the idea of progress as an inevitable concomitant of time, and 
I am afraid the world has shown that it has fallen behind the 
world that fought the Napoleonic wars in its ideals of chivalry, 
etc. Forgive these rather dull reflections ; there may after all 
be something beyond the mountains. 



To the Same. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley, Norfolk, 

December 21, 1914. 

I'm gazetted now, so my position is regularized. . . . 
Saturday last I went out and had a day goose-shooting ; no 
geese, but a lovely day out on a vast expanse of sand and salt 
marshes, and streams of these glorious birds over our heads 
right out of reach, circling and laughing at our impotence. 
You'd love the marsh with its brown, and greys, and greens, 
and creeks of oily mud, which we squelched in and out of in 
top-boots. We secured a few sea snipe, and ate and drank well 
of strange food, which I think is the chief charm of getting 
away. 

134 



Middlesex Yeomanry 

I have read "Sinister Street." The Oxford part of it is 
excellent, very true to life, especially the Magdalen life, which 
I saw a good deal of. What unsatisfactory people ! Alan of 
the sort sans peur et sans reproche settling down to be his 
wife's land agent, and Stella, after her cult of art and Bohemian 
swank, tediously happy as a chatelaine. Cellars could be filled 
with stuff similar to all those vignettes of the " Underworld," 
perhaps written with less art and realism, but it isn't really 
of much interest. Still, it is "some book," with a good deal 
of psychology. 



71? the Same. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley, 

December 29, 1914. 

I have had quite fun lately, looking after a troop in the 
absence of its proper leader. They must think me silly, and 
the sergeant knows everything about drill ; he is so versatile, 
has a tenor voice and a fine notion of playing soccer. I am 
very fussy about the horses, and worry the men about grooming 
them. It is the only subject on which I can assert myself. It 
takes a long time to get their names. They are almost as 
difficult to make out as hounds, and do not wear distinctive 
dresses or paint themselves distinctive faces like the ladies of 
Rome. Khaki is a leveller. 

I have just acquired a new horse, to my great satisfaction. 
He seems all he should be, in spite of a certain family likeness 
to a camel. The Colonel ramped twelve horses for us, and, 
Lord knows how, most of them .£200 hunters ; it seems a 
shame they should be under fire. I do feel for the horses, 
much more than for the men, except those I know. 

We had a regimental drill one day before the Divisional 
General, a nerve-wracking affair. I was shepherded by my 
talented sergeant and got through fairly well, only once 
attracting the notice of the General. 



135 



Charles Lister 

To tJic Same. 

MUNDESLEY, 

January 16, 1915. 

We've had a very eventful and busy week here — full of drill 
and two days' hunting. First day very fair. I was on my 
good horse and did some good leaping ; a harrier day slightly 
above the average but no more, a lot of " orficers " out. To-day, 
a very good day, I was unhappily on a horse that is a good 
jumper but has no great knowledge of banks. So I was put 
down twice ; no hurt to myself, but my horse was once in the 
hell of a fix, his foreleg caught in a hard stub on the bank and 
his hindleg embedded in a deep, muddy ditch : however, with 
the help of one of the gilded staff of a neighbouring brigade we 
extricated him. We were rather often hitched by wire. I 
cycled to the meet nine miles against a very strong headwind, 
and before I started I had done two and a half hours' drill and 
about three-quarters of an hour grooming, etc. So it was a very 
full day. In the course of the drill we did a little sham fight. I 
delivered a finely conceived flank attack on an almost impreg- 
nable position and was shot several times myself and had to 
admit defeat, but the attempt was very glorious. The drill has 
not been a particular success, but my manners have become 
more confident, and I lay down the law on a great number of 
subjects I don't understand in the very least. I don't think the 
men can be very fond of me, as I am fussy about horses and 
like to see them groomed every now and then, but they did me 
the honour of asking me to figure in a group they were having 
done of the troop. 

To A. F. Lascelles. 

MUNDESLEY, 

January 17, 1915. 

Still at Mundesley, and "the front" receding into the dim 
distance. 

I knew Julian would do well : only think, last winter or so, he 
was wanting to be an artist and chuck soldiering. I only hope 
136 



Middlesex Yeomanry 

he will be lucky. I strongly dissuaded him from his artistic 
leanings, and with some effect, though every one else was doing 
the same. He is such an obvious soldier. I only wish I was — 
when I halt between two opinions as to which is my right, 
and am detected by irate generals making a muddle of off- 
saddling. 

The Yeoman is a curious creature, but with a good music- 
hall sense of humour ; his faculty for losing his kit makes me 
feel among friends. 

To the Same. 

Grand Hotel, Mundesley, 

February 7, 1915. 

We have had a pretty strenuous week, winding up with a day 
spent on the muck-heaps of our stables and clearing away 
masses of manure in pouring rain. So you see what Jacks-of 
all-trades we are nowadays. The day was a Saturday, so the 
men were not best pleased. 

On Friday I directed a skeleton force — that is, two or three 
men with flags who represented armed myriads. I walked up 
and down the line on a prancing charger, not unlike Gustavus 
Adolphus. 1 

Another day we did patrol work — a summer pastime in my 
view — as the officer has to stand stock-still near some object of 
note, such as a bridge, and wait till his men send in reports. 
He gets very chilly in the process, so does his horse. We have 
also had riding school and jumping on to each other's horses. 
Active little people like you might shine at this game, I confess 
I don't. However, once the stomach is well on the saddle it is 
simply a question of sprawling, and the horses stand any amount 
of this. I can manage the little troop horses, but not my own 
prancers. 

The Brigadier's inspection was a success, and he liked our 
squadron very well, and this in spite of the fact that we were 

1 I again appeal to Scottites to remember gratefully Dalgetty'a horse in 
the " Legend of Montrose." 

137 



Charles Lister 

drilling with drawn swords, which lessens the control of the 
rider over his horse, as you can imagine. I made one egregious 
blunder — from ignorance, not loss of nerve — which I am rather 
getting over at drill. Drill is largely a question of swank 
and flourish — of a ringing voice when you are drilling and 
a theatrical wave of the sword when you are leading. I am 
supposed to have a fine word of command which shakes the 
rafters, and so on. 

I am taking an easy day to-day, as I was inoculated yester- 
day against — I don't quite know what ! But you see how we 
cling to the belief we are going to the front. Touching, isn't 
it? I am sorry for the victims of such persistent fallacies, but 
error may sometimes be the mother of truth. 



To Ferdinand Speyer. 

Duke of Cambridge's Hussars, 

February 8, 1915. 

Many thanks for your letter — which interested me very 
much. 

Sir E. Grey's only chance of averting war was to declare 
"solidarity" with Russia at the outset of the crisis. If he had 
said England would in no circumstances come in — the other 
alternative you suggest — he would have simply increased 
German determination to go to war with Russia. 

You say we promised military help to Belgium. Do you 
refer to the correspondence published in the White Book, 
Grey Book, etc., which, as far as I can remember, shows that 
some of the things Grey said might be construed in this 
sense, or to some undertaking on the part of Grey hitherto 
unrecorded ? I wonder how much anything we said might 
have influenced Belgium's attitude. Of course, I don't mean 
the general support, which we were to give, but rather promises 
of immediate military action. I rather fancy that the Belgians 
took the line they did, not so much with the idea that they 
could at once be got out of the wood by their allies, but 

138 



Middlesex Yeomanry 

because they thought a fine defence of the principle of 
neutrality, cost what it might, was for themselves the most 
farseeing policy to pursue ; Belgian permission to the Germans 
to pass through their territory would have been a blow to all 
the smaller States of Europe. I believe, however, that it is 
the case that certain members of the Cabinet were only in- 
duced to vote for the sending of the expeditionary force to 
France because they thought it would clear the Germans out 
of Belgium. Curious how the right thing is done for the 
wrong reason, for by the time the expeditionary force was out 
the Germans were quite secured in their possession of the 
greater part of that country. 

I am on the whole inclined to agree with Vandervelde that 
Belgium did the most politic, as well as the most honourable 
thing in resisting. She is, after all, herself profoundly affected 
by this issue of neutrality, as a sanction that States are pre- 
pared to enforce by arms, and she would have created a prece- 
dent against herself by any other course of action. 

I wonder what we should have done if Belgium had not 
resisted. I am rather afraid we should have missed the big 
issues — and come down on the wrong side of the fence, at any 
rate for some time. 

I am surprised at the enormous reserve of men Germany 
appears to have. It is quite uncanny — but I dare say The 
Times has exaggerated. 

It is great, your becoming a business manager already : you 
are a nut. I am glad. I saw F. McLaren a day or two ago ; 
he came with his naval armoured cars and had a field day 
with us. He was in good form. He is under Wedgwood, the 
land-taxer, whom I liked very much. 

I am having quite fun with the military life, though I feel 
my khaki is a sort of fancy dress, and that I am very much 
of a civilian all the time. 

A few days were to bring a momentous change. Several Balliol friends 
of Charles had just obtained commissions in the Royal Naval Brigade, 
and a hurried visit to London decided that he was to sail with them. 
" It was difficult saying good-bye to dear Harry," he wrote of his Colonel 

139 



Charles Lister 

from the ship Franconia about ten days after the date of the last letter, 
and again he expresses regret for the Middlesex Yeomanry and its 
Colonel. But he was glad to be off. 

Now God be thanked who has matched us with His hour, 
And caught our youth and wakened us from sleeping, 
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power . . . 

These are the words of one of the band of new Argonauts — for so we 
must think of them — with whom Charles sailed from London port that 
February day, not in the same ship, but with the Divisional Staff. — B. W. C. 



140 



VII 

LETTERS FROM S.S. "FRANCONIA," WITH 
HEADQUARTERS STAFF 

The Divisional and Brigade Staff of the Royal Naval Division were 
commanded by Brigadier- General Aston, K.C.B., Royal Marine Artillery. 
(General Paris, who had commanded at Antwerp, was afterwards sent 
out to relieve him on the Peninsula.) Charles was Interpreter to the 
Staff as " a Headquartersman." The battalions " Hood " and " Anson " 
and "Hove" sailed with the Franconia from Tilbury, andijwere not 
disunited until the whole flotilla reached Port Said. — B. W. C. 



To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Cunard R.M.S. "Franconia," 

March 5, 1915. 

... I suppose this is just wisdom, and that those who have 
lived would always like their lives over again. Well, I shan't 
regret this stunt, whatever happens. It is the most exhilarating 
feeling to be again on the sea of the ancient civilizations and 
dream of the galleys of Carthage and Venice — or farther back 
still — of the raft of Odysseus, and wonder why Dante put him 
in the Inferno (Canto XXVI). He is certainly a soul difficult 
to judge by moral. But I should have thought that passionate 
curiosity and yearning for knowledge would have counted for 
something with the All-knowing. I feel like a pinchbeck 
Odysseus — longing for the same things, but with the limits and 
valour of some little City clerk, and no power to return and 
slay the suitors of my Penelope — in posse. I am reading the 
Paradiso now, Canto XXXI ; the end having the rather dry 

1.4 1 



Charles Lister 

bit about the election of children to the heavenly heritage is 
simply stupendous, with all the Dantesque qualities of nervous 
description, mystic ecstasy, passionate seeking after the divine 
and bitter irony combined. He says of the Church triumphant 
that the Barbarians, as the Roman senators burst into their 
view as they advanced on Rome, could not have been more 
amazed than he at the sight of the redeemed. 

Io, che al divino dall' umano, 

all' eterno dal tempo era venuto, 

e di Fiorenza, in popol giusto e sano. 

I love that last line, don't you ? You ought to read all this 
when you get back to the hills and cypresses of Florence. It 
is a mistake to stop at Siede la terra, and so on. You 
might, however, in God's good time send me out a little Dante 
by post — Temple Classic is the best edition. . . . 

These are glorious times. I hope I shall like campaigning 
as much as Julian does. I wish you were here. You'd love 
it all so — why don't you try ? — get out with Lady Paget's show 
to Serbia when you've had a real rest. Or why not here ? but 
I don't understand our arrangements. I fancy they are pretty 
complete. 



The following letter is from Malta. Patrick Shaw-Stewart describes 
elsewhere the meeting with Balliol friends. "... When Charles caught 
the R.N.D., as one catches the last train, at the end of February, he was 
an interpreter and sailed on the Franconia with the Divisional Staff. The 
' Hood ' was in a poky little Union Castle boat called the Grantully Castle, 
and we only saw him now and then. At Malta he blew in on us, and we 
spent a noisy evening ashore." — R. 

To the Same. 

CUNARD " FRAN'COXIA," 

March io, 1915. 

Things have proceeded pretty peacefully since I wrote, 
except for rather stirring times at a certain island. It does 
not look at all real — Malta — when you come into the harbour : 
142 



Headquarters Staff 

there seems no way in and no way out of the great yellow walls 
that slope up from the sea, beaten by wave and sun and 
exhaling a sort of yellow dust into the southern air. Then 
it is so very seventeenth century — baroque without Bernini 
lavishness, under the restraint imposed by the original 
knightly uses to which the island was put as a bulwark against 
the Turks. The houses have often got flat roofs and bay 
windows with green shutters. They are nearly all built of 
the same yellow-whitish stone. No green to be seen till 
you have got well into the town, and then occasional ribbons 
of very bright verdure with a dry, stony background of hills. 
The outside walls of the fortress-city are grown over with 
bougainvillia and look on to neat little cemeteries —and the 
graves already prepared and stone-faced, and cypresses growing 
in the corners and down the central path. The people talk no 
known language. Italian worse than English. And the 
women wear an extraordinary head-dress. It appears they 
were over-complaisant to the French troops of occupation at 
the time of the Napoleonic Wars — so much so that they 
scandalized their own priests who devised and enforced this 
head-dress as an emblem of shame. It was to be worn for a 
hundred years. The hundred years are at an end, but this 
dress is still enforced. The Naval Division did not have long 
time enough to prove that humanity remains much the same. 
The ladies are with few exceptions plain. Patrick's ship was also 
in port, so we went and dined and to the Opera and generally 
razzled — "Jack on Shore" to the manner born. I did some 
laborious purchases on shore and left them all beyond retrieve 
on the quay, and for no legitimate excuse as we were as sober 
as you would have us be. We saw Ivor Windsor in fine dark 
blue uniform with silver chain epaulettes. He had been seeing 
the Captain of the Emden who was in chokey there. This 
hero is in real life rather glum and dry and not the Bayard of 
romance our newspapers said. I didn't see him. As we went 
out a French battleship Lion Gambetta came in, and we 
all cheered her and her band played " Tipperary " ; we got 
tremendous cheering going out of port. This voyage alone is 

143 



Charles Lister 

most heartening ; to think of all of us going from end to end of 
this roguish old sea — unescorted — we only had torpedo-boats 
up till the end of the mine zone — just as if it was our territory 
— passing our strongholds on the way and seeing everywhere 
evidence of the great military and diplomatic conditions we 
have made — it's too good to be true. Malta was full of French 
ships and bristled with guns. You never get this sense of 
power at home. 

Ship life has gone on its daily round. The rest of the ship 
count over its blessedness among ships in that it is honoured 
by a Divisional and Brigade Staff. And the mild radiance still 
lights our lives. I am neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, being viewed 
with suspicion as a Headquarters man and yet not sharing in 
the glories of the red hat and lapel tabs. But I am happy 
enough, as I've made several friends. 

The Hood was in port at Malta when the Franconia, with the Divisional 
Staff, came into harbour. The first meeting of Charles with the battalion 
in which he had so great an interest strengthened the wish which he had 
already formed to be with the regiment, as one of its subalterns, in which 
were so many of his friends. 

The Grantully Castle was a small Castle Line ship, and the subaltern 
officers' mess was afforded little space and few luxuries, but one of them 
had brought a piano on board, and no record of the Hood Battalion on its 
way to the Eastern Mediterranean would be complete without mention of 
the rare pianoforte recitals and choice programmes given on those winter 
nights in more or less stormy waters. The musicians were Lieutenants 
F. S. Kelly and Denis Brown. — R. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Cunard R.M.S. "Franconia," 

March 10, 1915. 

We are still at sea and more or less in the straight, and 
don't know when or where we are going to land. 

We had a jolly time in Malta. That absence of green and 

the ramparts all round give an impression of artificiality ; it is 

like a stage fortress or the great palace that the Magician drops 

from somewhere to conceal the princess he is guarding from the 

144 



Headquarters Staff 

hero in a fairy story. And the sea never seems to have settled 
down since the descent of this Magic rampart into its depths. 

I saw Patrick and Oc. Our whole flotilla was concentrated 
in the port ; they have a very jolly battalion, which I should 
like to join in some capacity as soon as the Staff Intelligence 
Corps gets properly organized. 

In a Divisional Staff all the men are so senior that one has 
always to be out with the " Sir." They are as nice as they 
can be, but a regiment is better fun, and it is more of a unity ; 
a Staff is an amorphous body collected for no particular reason 
and with no particular traditions or tones, and a Divisional 
Staff is so large, and lacks the intimacy of a Brigade Staff, 
with its Brigadier, its Brigade Major and Staff Captain. Still, 
bless the Staff for getting me out here, and I'd sooner be a 
door-keeper, and so on, than dwell in Norfolk all the summer. 
So I feel I am as lucky as any one can be — so much more 
than I deserve. 

Bless you. Did you enjoy your time in France ? I suppose 
the Dunkirk heroine 1 is back to her harness. 



To Mr. C. Starkie. 

R.M.S. " Franconia," 

March 10, 1915. 

I am afraid I never answered the letter you were kind 
enough to write to me about Gisburne doings, in which, as 
you know, I am keenly interested. 

You will have heard that I am off — somewhere — and I 
write to you now from the high seas. I am glad to be out 
of Norfolk and for it at last, though I have now got a Staff 
job — interpreter attached to the Naval Division — which I 
do not like so much as regimental work, especially with my 

1 This refers to the bombardment of Dunkirk, May 2, 1915, where his 
sister was serving in the Duchess of Sutherland's Hospital. Shells 
exploded close to the building, and the wounded had to be taken out 
on to the sea beach. Dunkirk, for hospital purposes was evacuated after 
this.— R. 

U .145 



Charles Lister 

own regiment under Sir Mathew. Still, it is a good thing 
to get to the front as best one can. 

We have had a very smooth voyage and been in no way 
disturbed by enemy submarines nor by storms. I fancy we 
go too fast for submarines, which can only take on a slow- 
going boat. 

I am glad that the German blockade has proved such 
an egregious farce so far, and resulted in such heavy losses 
for them. Out here, seeing all our sea-power and the way 
we take troops from one end of the sea to the other — un- 
escorted — has impressed me much. The Mediterranean is 
like our own territory. 

What a run you must have had that Worthy Hill day. 

The next halting-place was Lemnos. Neither the island nor its hero 
are very distinct amidst the allusion. Dr. Smith's Classical Dictionary 
tells us that Philoctetes, the famous archer in the Trojan War, was 
left behind by his men in the Island of Lemnos because he was ill 
from a wound which he had received from the bite of a snake. 
This is all that the Homeric poems relate of Philoctetes, but the 
cyclic and tragic poets have added numerous details to the story. Thus 
they relate that he was the friend and armour-bearer of Heracles, who 
instructed him in the use of the bow, and who bequeathed to him his 
bow with the poisoned arrows. According to some accounts the wound 
was not inflicted by a serpent, but by his own poisoned arrows. He was 
cured and soon after slew Paris, whereupon Troy fell into the hands of 
the Greeks.— B. W. C. 



To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

R.M.S. "Franconia," 

March 14, 1915. 

This will not be a good letter as I am very hurried to 
catch our ship's post, which has come upon us as a thief in 
the night after a long expedition to the big town on this 
glorious island where we are for the time halted. This was 
the Island of Philoctetes, the Homeric hero, whom the Greeks 
found a disagreeable companion, as he had had his foot bitten 
by a snake, and been marooned on these rocky hills en route 
J 46 



Headquarters Staff 

for Troy. Patrick and Oc. and I went to-day to the chief town" 
and asked the natives who he was. They told us he was 
an Argonaut, and that the ladies of the island were so much 
fyrises by him and his companions that they killed all their 
husbands, so that the handsome strangers might take their 
place. This is a very interesting mix-up of the story of 
Jason, who, on his return from the search after the golden 
fleece arrived here and found the place solely dwelt in by 
women who had killed all their menfolk — I forget why — and 
who had a rather serious flirtation with the Queen, whom 
he left, indignant at his treachery. Philoctetes, the natives 
added, lived two hundred years ago — hastily altered to eight 
hundred — and was a very good man who liked possession, 
and who liked all the building very well done. Oc. met 
a little Greek shopkeeper who had known him in Omdurman, 
and pointed him out to the duly impressed crowd of natives 
as " the son of Mr. Asquith." So you see what fame is. Here 
they talk every known language. I like getting back to these 
jabbering people in the costumes of all ages, one man with his 
bowler on his head and his great red sash and baggy trousers ; 
another in perfect tailor-made clothes but with a dirty cloth 
wrapped round and round a wrinkled, sunburnt, crab-apple of 
a face. The various degrees of shaving were also interesting. 

It was a dear little town we went to, with its turquoise 
harbour and frowning fort built high above the house on a 
great pile of rock, and another great mass rising next it to 
show God can always go one better than man. There was 
a little mosque in the centre of the main square, and near it 
a Moslem cemetery overgrown with purple wild irises and 
asphodel. We were very well received, and the police all 
turned out to make omelettes for us and order our wine — 
you never saw such wine — it tasted partly of liquorice, partly of 
turpentine. I think one would get to like it, but at the first 
contact one feels it would add a new terror to crucifixion. 
Then we had some white wine very like Muscat. Along the 
road we had glimpses of neighbouring islands. Samothrace, 
where Poseidon sat to look on at the fighting on the plains 

147 



Charles Lister 

of Troy ; and once we saw Mount Athos, snow-capped and 
beetling up into the sky, and where now sit thirty monasteries. 

The fruit blossoms are just beginning to come out, and 
the village orchards will soon be one mass of pink and 
white. It is curious to think such an ideal spot should have 
been the cradle of so many cruel legends, and that Hypsilele's 
tears have watered the soil where the peasants grow their 
almond-trees. Jason, I think, was unduly criticized over this 
incident ; the poor man was, after all, on active service — heroes 
were never off it. But heroes want watching. A nice fire- 
side young man like me is the sort. Domestic — and no 
fire-eater. My Turkish is getting on very well, and if I light 
on a theme of which I know the vocabulary, I am almost 
impressive — but too quick speech rather flummoxes me. 

PS. — Have I given away our halting-place? Don't give it 
away to any one else — unless of course it is generally known. 

The following is from Lemnos. A letter of Sir Ian Hamilton to Lady 
Wilson tells how the news of the great battle in the Dardanelles reached 
the Naval Division. " As to your second question, ' Which G.O.C.-in-C. 
came on board the Franconia at Lemnos and brought news of first 
landing at Gallipoli ? ' I was the only G.O.C.-in-C. in Eastern waters. 
I went on board the Franconia on the night of the great naval battle of 
March 18th when the Irresistible, the Ocean, and the Bouvet went to the 
bottom ; the Inflexible and the Gaulois being very badly knocked about. 
I brought news of this historic engagement, and well remember the 
immense sensation it created in the Naval Division." — R. 

To the Same. 

R.M.S. '* Franconia," 

March 19, 1915. 

I wish you were here. I'll tell you who are here — all the 
Staff of the newly appointed generalissimo — and the man him- 
self. It is going to be a very big show, and the figures of troops 
one hears quoted increase by leaps and bounds. There are 
constant arrivals moreover ; and you can see Australians and 
French jostling one another on the little quay outside the chief 
town. The opinions of our gallant fellows of the French are 

•148 



Headquarters Staff 

very funny — the sort of old Frenchman who appears with a 
goaty beard and spectacles whom one often sees excites 
much interest. 

I am still in a condition of rather "unmasterly" inactivity, as 
I have nothing whatever to do on the ship, and am not turned 
on to any odd jobs ; I've rather mixed feelings about this. I 
am sick of Turkish vocabularies, with which I never seem to 
make any progress, and get on shore as much as I can to talk 
to the natives, a lot of whom know Turkish and so give me 
good practice ; and I think I am improving — I wish I was 
doing more ; I am still full of fears that this may be a 
second Norfolk. I am afraid chafers like myself fret themselves 
too much. 

You will have our news before you get this in all probability. 
It is for the present not too good, and will probably lead to 
rather prompt action on our part. 

To the Same. 

s.s. " Franconia," 

March 22, 1915. 

We are still here, marooned like the hero of the festering foot 
and expectant. When with the assistance of my housekeeper, 
who is to solace my declining years, I write up all this time, it 
will be interesting to see how Britain manages her affairs. 
First hustled out post haste. Stores all over the place, in the 
wildest confusion. Then held up in this spot for days — about 
to leave every afternoon, yet never leaving. Then a case of 
reculez pour mieux sauter. Then I suppose the final spring. I 
don't feel the Germans would have quite done it in this way. 
Priceless people aren't we ? The horses have arrived only to be 
yoicked off senz' altro. No letters come here. 

The Balliol men collected one evening and dined, and after- 
wards we sang the songs of our native heath with great gusto. 
The new Staff is brilliant but affable like the archangels, and 
applauded our singing efforts without stint. They are nicer 
than the Naval Division Staff; less conscious of dignity and the 

149 



Charles Lister 

weight of office, and they've got some people who really do 
know what we're about, and have been in the Near East. 

I went on shore yesterday and had a jolly walk among 
barren stony hills, windswept from end to end. Little peasants, 
their heads well wrapped round with nondescript cloths and 
brightly coloured petticoats, winding up and down the hill paths 
on their donkeys. I like to see sunburnt faces. I then came 
down into the town and talked Turkish with my friends at the 
little wine-shop. In the evening I talked with an old Con- 
stantinople friend of mine now on board. He is our great hope, 
and knows everything : talks Turkish like a marvel, and is 
sound, not a crank like most Balkan experts. 



To the Same. 

s.s. " Franconia," Port Said, 

March 28, 1915. 

We have left our island and have been whisked off ostensibly 
for Alexandria, then suddenly diverted here. I have seen a 
certain amount of this place, and it certainly has a character 
of its own. The naked and unashamed petty roguery and 
its unredeemed ugliness and ramshackleness are quite by 
themselves. It is all a huge joke at which every one is 
smiling, bearing with flippant calm all minor worries such 
as dust and flies. The latter are almost the " friend of man " ; 
a man is quite unconcerned if they sit on the end of his 
nose or wriggle into his eyes, and there are flies even now. 
What will there be in August ? 

The natives wear a jolly blue overall and a fez sometimes 
wrapped round with a hoja's white duster. The ladies are 
often seen in the streets in black dresses like a man's habit 
veiled up to the nose and with a funny little brass ornament 
connecting the veil with the hood above. They don't look 
beauties : beauty is indeed rather absent among the people 
of this side, and the type is generally low. Every one talks 
Italian. It was rather a disappointment not going to Alex- 
150 



Headquarters Staff 

andria, but there may very possibly be some fighting here. 
There was a little fight a few days ago. 

Our real object, however, in coming here is not to defend 
the Canal but to collect our armada and to straighten out our 
stores, etc., which in the case of the Naval Division are in a 
condition of some disorder. The Armada is still destined for 
the greater game. But many roads lead to Rome. 

I can't help smiling at the boastful attitude of the papers 
of about a week ago as to Allied exploits in the Dardanelles. 
I am afraid we are rather quiet about our performances in that 
part of the world just now. I see the Admiralty have admitted 
in rather cryptic language that the attack on the 18th was 
not altogether a success. It dramatically synchronized with 
the arrival of a certain distinguished General Officer, 1 who 
naturally witnessed the discomfiture of our ships. 

Isn't the general note of optimism that prevails rather 
singular? I think we shall be through with the job by the 
end of the year, but July does seem rather early closing. 
Things seem going well for us in Italy. I am still more or 
less without occupation and have nothing to do besides work- 
ing up my Turkish. For the time that we are here I shall 
try and get attached to Patrick's battalion. I am painfully 
getting this intrigue through now, lobbying and waiting for 
the great, who are to-day having an access of the work malady 
and not, as usual, comatose in the smoking-room armchairs. 
I think it will be successful, as my people have really nothing 
for me to do here. {Later: My intrigue is through.) 2 

The chances of seeing a shot fired here are very slight but 
not absolutely nil, and we shall be safely behind our forts. 

1 Vide note, p. 148. — R. 

3 Vide p. 156, Mr. Shaw-Stewart's letter. — R. 



151 



VIII 

WITH THE HOOD BATTALION AT PORT SAID 

The story of the doings of the Naval Division is no longer told from 
the Franconia with the Headquarters Staff. The letters that follow are 
written from a Donald Currie steamer lying in harbour at Port Said- 
Charles was now gazetted to the Hood Battalion of the R.N.D. — and was 
meeting many Eton, Oxford, and Cambridge friends, all, like himself, full 
of eager anticipation of the vicissitudes and possibilities of war. — R. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

April 2, 1915. 

I am now a fixture in my battalion. I would have sooner 
been a supernumerary in view of my inexperience of infantry 
work, but they wanted me to take a platoon and I could not 
refuse. My company commander, one of the best, can say 
" Ejectum littore egentem accepi" (I hope he won't have cause 
to finish the quotation). This is my first taste of camp life. 
The sand is the chief hardship — one day we had a horrid 
sandstorm, and it was impossible to go out without all the 
chinks of one's face being filled up with black sand : all our 
tents were finely dusted all over. 

There is jolly bathing quite near and rude plenty ; every- 
thing you get in the town is excellent, and we eat and 
drink like fighting-cocks. I am very fit. To-day we were 
inspected by the G.O.C.-in-C, and complimented on our 
appearance. I marched past with all the swagger of the 
rawest recruit ; very self-conscious. My company has fine 
152 



Port Said 

material, nearly all Naval Reserve men : hard nuts. I feel a 
sort of baby among them. There are many over thirty-five. 
The sun was brilliant, and the bayonets flashed like mag- 
nesium when it is burnt. 



To the Same. 

Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 

April 3, 1915. 

This letter is written in medias res and the lavish disorder 
and glorious romance of the tented field with the transports 
in view that are to take us to . 

It has been very jolly getting into the battalion, there 
are so many likeable people. I have got a platoon and 
bellow out orders which I understand through a glass darkly, 
but which are carried out punctiliously by my men, who are 
old hands, having been mostly stokers. 

I have taken to camp life with zest, and I bathe early 
every morning in the rather soiled sea of this place, and 
sleep out in a Wolseley valise, a Jaeger bag, and my fur 
coat. It is coldish in the mornings, but the angry dawn 
over the ships' funnels is a grand spectacle as is the moon 
that whitens great stretches of sand in the evening, and 
throws her light on the rigging of the fishing-boats, shaped 
like the ships of Odysseus on the Greek vases and black 
against their star-lit backgrounds. We live in plenty — rude 
plenty — not too many clean plates, but heaps to eat and 
delicious prawns for nothing practically. My company com- 
mander is a topper and a champion swimmer, as hard as 
nails and a real fighting leader ; not so knowledgeable as 
Wilson — bless him — but a grand man. I do not fancy this 
is going to be a second Norfolk : even if we stop here we 
have the enemy nearer to us than at Mundesley. 

Patrick and Rupert Brooke are down with sun, but not 
seriously. I am marvellously well and in fine condition, 
thanks to these few days on shore. 

153 



Charles Lister 

To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 

April 3, 1915. 

... I am afraid there is very little to say. We have been 
joy-riding about the Mediterranean under conditions which, 
up till now, made the idea of active service seem very remote. 
A Cunarder with its American bar, six-course dinner, and other 
accessories does not connect itself in my mind with anything 
but a transatlantic trip to Newport. 

We were inspected by the G.O.C.-in-C. the other day, and 
really made a very good show. It is an exhilarating sense, 
marching in front of a line of strong men in step, their bayonets 
bright in the sun and the great adventure in their eyes. They 
all wear shorts now and step along very gaily. The G.O.C. 
was pleased with us and said so. The division, as you know, is 
fearfully and wonderfully made, and combines all the elements 
in its officers — the Guardsman, the Marine, the Balliol man, and 
the retired merchant service officer. It is remarkable how they 
have welded together. The war news looks very good, and I 
believe the end will soon be in sight. We shall now be able 
to reap the fruits of the battle of the Marne. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

R.N.D., M.E.F., c/o G.P.O., 

April 5, 191 5. 

One little line before the mail, after two days of purgatory on 
these sands — duststorm blowing all the time and not a chink 
of an honest, open countenance clean within half a mile of it. 
Tempers all rather ruffled, and food highly flavoured with sand. 
Were we birds our gizzards would by now be in the very best 
form and mastication a pleasure. I was Battalion Orderly 
Officer yesterday, so I had no relief from the attentions of the 
sand, having to stay in camp all day. I distinguished myself 
by ordering a sergeant-major of the battalion next us to turn 
out his light. I was not only ultra vires, but trespassing on 

154 



Port Said 

a most cherished privilege. So my confusion was dire : other- 
wise the day was uneventful. All our mails we hear have 
gone to India — a very good place for them to go to, though 
some little distance from where we are now. Plans are still 
vague, and we are kept sitting on our haunches waiting for the 
mot d'ordre. It is, of course, impossible to give the men any 
work in this plague of Egypt. We had hoped yesterday that 
the sand might have been accompanied by locusts. One or 
two fine specimens, yellow and fat, flitted in to call on us. 
The men are in a state of cheerful grouse, and long for the 
quiet and peace of the Gallipoli Peninsula. We've had to 
chuck sleeping out as one would have been buried and dug out 
perhaps thousands of years hence. I censor some of the men's 
letters. They all talk about their knees getting burnt by the 
sun — we have put them all into shorts — and that they can't 
say any more because of the Censor. 

To Rev. Ronald Knox. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

April 26, 1915.' 

No, I am not lonely at present, nor particularly uncomfortable. 
I am in a very jolly battalion — the " Hood." It is great fun 
having some small executive command as I have in the 
" Hood." 

I fancy the original idea of the Admiralty was to force 
the Straits with ships alone. The R.N.D. were to come into 
the show as the force that was to do the dirty work of the ships, 
land occasional demolition parties, garrison forts the ships had 
cleared, and so on. Then came the gradual conviction that this 
was an impossible programme. Some marines were landed 
about the middle of March. My platoon got badly potted 
on ground which had been thoroughly searched by the ship's 

1 The following more or less retrospective letter is written to a great 
friend of his Eton and Balliol days. It is dated from the ALgean, but 
properly finds its place here in view of the constant references to school 
and university comrades. — R. 

155 



Charles Lister 

guns, and it was shown that ship's guns could not permanently 
rid ground of snipers or concealed trenches. Result : the 
gradual aggrandizement of our force with Australians, French- 
men, and so on, and the addition of a General Officer 
Commanding-in-Chief. He arrived about March 18th, and 
witnessed the sinking of the Irresistible and the Ocean. After 
that all naval operations on the grand scale were deferred, 
and it was plain that so long as the Turks held the peninsula 
and the mainland of the Asiatic side they were in a position 
to drift floating mines down the current and prevent the 
passage of ships. So we were taken to Egypt and encamped 
at Port Said on a sandy stretch of the station. . . . 

Port Said is a merry sink of the minor iniquities — sunny and 
unashamed. Nothing there of interest except the people, a very 
low type of Arab, who accepts his degradation in a cheerful 
enough spirit, and has on the whole a very good time. 1 

About this time Mr. Patrick Shaw-Stewart, of the R.N.D., thus describes 
Charles joining the Hood Battalion. — R. 

" At Port Said Charles introduced himself by most sub- 
terranean methods into the Hood. He pulled as many 
strings to get off the Staff as others to get on to it — and 
in about three days he had a platoon. The four subalterns 
of the company were then Charles, Rupert Brooke, Johnny 
Dodge, and me. I had dysentery all the time at Port Said, 
so I missed the spectacle of Charles drilling stokers on 
Yeomanry lines — an entrancing one, I have been told. There 
is one particularly circumstantial story of how he marched a 
body of men on to the parade-ground before the eyes of the 
Brigade, and in his resonant parade tone ordered them to 
halt in words more suited to the evolutions of quadrupeds. 
When I staggered on board about April ioth he was firmly 

1 From Port Said Charles sailed, to quote him, " to an island of marble, 
to brilliant blue landlocked bays, sage and balsam, and bees." The rest 
of this letter to Rev. R. Knox, which bears evidence of having been 
written at different times, finds its place with some letters written on the 
eve of actual operations in the Dardanelles. — R. 

156 



Port Said 

ensconced in the battalion, and evidently had no intention of 
leaving it. It became a very jolly family party on board 
ship. At the same table Charles, and Rupert Brooke, and 
Oc, and Denis Brown, and Johnny Dodge, and Kelly, and 
me. Rupert and Charles, who were great friends, were its 
pivots." 

In the same way Lieutenant Denis Brown writes to Mr. E. Marsh of 
the unforeseen meetings in the new conditions of war : — 

" Our party goes on happily. Charles Lister is a great 
gain even to those who don't understand him. He has the 
kindest heart imaginable, hasn't he? We laughed a good 
deal over the Divisional Notes on the character of the 
Turks, particularly at one which said they did not like night 
attacks because they hated the dark and invariably slept 
with a night light. Charles parodied them inimitably." r 

1 These extracts from other folks' letters spoil, perhaps, the run of the 
actual correspondence, but still they give a sort of local colour — to use 
a horrible term. — R. 



W$7x 



IX 

LETTERS FROM THE ^GEAN 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

April 15, 1915.' 

We are still yachting in the Mediterranean, more remote 
from the feeling of war than when we were on the 
dustheaps of Egypt, and living the daily round of ship 
life, with its strangely made menus. You don't know what 
" cardoons " are — they sound like one of the degrees of black 
blood — yet we have them ; not to mention hominies, and 
Yosemite girdle cakes, and Schoongesicht wine from Table 
Bay. 

I am trying to learn signalling, which is a useless accom- 
plishment, I fancy, but I must above all give the impression 
of zeal, as I always feel my position is rocky and my 
accomplishments far behind those of my brother officers. 
They are so versed in machine-guns, physical drill, and all 
the other accomplishments of the foot-slogging soldier. I 
feel that anything I know is worth very little. Our best 
officer is an ex-cavalry man, but he has seen service in the 
Matabele and Boer Wars — and I have seen service at 
Mundesley. 

1 Written off Patmos. The ancient city lay on the eastern side of the 
island, with the harbour on the sea, rather lower than the modern town. 
The natives still show the cave where St. John wrote his Gospel in 
banishment. About April 12th the Hood Battalion had sailed from Port 
Said on the Franconia. — B. W. C. 

158 



Letters from the ALgean 

I smile at these wishes for a rapid passage through the 
Golden Gate. 1 The nearest we have been to the G.G. is 
some fifty miles, and I feel the gilt of potential heroism 
wearing off amid the sands of Egypt as quickly as it was 
tarnished by the mud of Norfolk. I cannot write you any 
more about seas and sunsets, and shall not take up my pen 
till we have some tale of blood to our credit (at least, I 
suppose I shall, from what I know of the speed of our 
movements). But you would like the island of the Apocalyse. 
A city of dazzling white crowns it, and stands out brilliant 
long after the hills have been merged into the gloaming. 
I wonder if it existed in the time of St. John, and gave 
him the idea of the heavenly city. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

April 16, 1915. 

This is again on board ship, bound for an " unknown destina- 
tion." This, I suppose, is the saut after the reculement. But I 
fancy we shall wait about a bit more at our islands. I am very 
much happier in the Battalion than on the Staff, and there have 
so far been no contretemps with the platoon, which is tame and 
has good petty officers. The stokers look after themselves. 
You just tell a Petty Officer to get something or other done 
and it is done with unobtrusive regularity. It is impossible 
to do any drill on board ship except rather uncomfortable 
Swedish exercises, which, I suppose, are beneficial. They are 
certainly disagreeable, and done with little enough grace by 
most of us. Then there is practice in machine-gun work which 
I have continued since the Franconia, and semaphore signalling 

1 The " Golden Gate " was one of the gates of the city of Constanti- 
nople. In the Middle Ages Constantinople was besieged by the Arabs 
soon after the Hejira, and we read that " from dawn of light till evening 
the line of assault was extended from the Golden Gate to the eastern 
promontory. And when the Greeks wrested Constantinople from the 
Latins in 1261, they broke an entrance into the city through the Golden 
Gate."— B. W. C. 

159 



Charles Lister 

which I am trying to learn. This is difficult ; a pretty thing if 
well done, but of doubtful advantage. I do not think that sig- 
nalling is possible in face of an enemy — you would show yourself 
too much, certainly with flags. 

We are sailing between wonderful islands of an opal colouring 
with cobalt blue shadows between the rocks and ravines. We 
passed the island of the Revelation, and saw a gorgeous white 
city on the top of one of the hills, which must have inspired 
the idea of the heavenly city. It remained in sight long after 
hills round had sank into the twilight. The sea under the 
setting sun is really wine dark. 

We have got some horses on board, which have done pretty 
well and look very jolly in their boxes with their heads out. 
The men are having a fancy dress ball to-night, and we have 
to think of dresses, etc., for them, which is a business. As 
towels are about the only material available the problem is 
not easy. 

I go on talking Turkish to our little interpreter. I acquire 
quite quickly, but do not make real progress, as he is very bad 
at English and never knows what I am talking about. What 
impression did the mishap to those ships about a month ago 
make on the English public ? I see we made a clean breast 
of it. All love. 



To the Hon. Irene Law ley. 

Hood Battalion, B.M.E.F., c/o G.P.O., 

April 20, 1915. 1 

(Union Castle Line.) 

We are still waiting, in a neat bay formed by the Island of 
Achilles. Here he was hidden among a bevy of maidens, and 

1 This letter is from the Island of Scyros, known as the Island of 
Achilles. It lies with Lemnos and Imbros off the coast of Ancient 
Thessaly. A cycle of legends relate the conquest of Scyros by Achilles. 
There was a sanctuary of Achilles known to tradition, and the actual 
worship of the island is of a hero or god. Can this be St. George ? The 
ancient city of Scyros is now the town of St. George. — B. W. C. 

.160 



Letters from the Mgean 

dressed in female attire by his mother Thetis so that he should 
not be taken for the Trojan War. Thetis knew that he must 
die if he went to Troy. Odysseus, however, suspected this, and 
came to the island dressed as a merchant with draperies and 
female gewgaws, but amongst them was a sword, and Achilles 
at once gave himself away by showing interest in the cold steel. 
So he went to Troy and there died. 

The island is made of pink marble, out of which sage and 
balsam and every kind of wild flower grows. It is humming with 
bees, and there are groves of olive- and thorn-trees in the ravines 
that run down to the sea from the mountain tops. In the middle 
of the island there is a little " nek " of brilliantly green cultivated 
land. The water in the island's bays is an extraordinary blue, 
and cold to swim in. Oc. and I and my company com- 
mander, who is a very fine swimmer, tried to swim back from 
the shore one day. Oc. and I had to chuck it, as we got 
chattering cold ; my C.C. did the distance as easy as pot. It 
is about two miles, and we must have swum about a mile and a 
quarter. To-day we three all did a shorter swim from shore of 
about one mile. Patrick and I went a walk on the island, 
and we met the only inhabitant, a charming man in blue baggy 
trousers, who gave us lunch consisting of a sort of milk-cheese 
and some good damp brown peasant bread. We went home in 
a native boat, rowed by an old fisherman and his wife, who 
sleep in the boat and light fires in it. We have had two field 
days — one brigade, one divisional. The brigade day was 
pleasant. We lay in the sun on a hillside and built ourselves 
little stone sangars. The divisional day consisted in aimless 
walking about over very rough country, which fed the men up 
thoroughly and spoilt their boots. 

What have people at home made of the Manitu incident ? l 
Curious that the Turks Well I won't say any more. 

I doze over " Infantry Training," practise signalling, and read 

* The attempted sinking of the Manitu referred to was by a German 
destroyer which missed fire after magnanimously giving the crew five 
minutes to leave the ship. It carried guns tor the 29th Division. The 
Franconia and several destroyers were at the time anchored off Scj ros.— R. 

M *6l 



Charles Lister 

Anatole France. Les Sept Femmes de Barbe bleu is a 
fascinating example. La Chemise, the last story, of the 
search for the shirt of a happy man is charming. Then I have 
started on Monsieur Bergeret a Paris. I rather like the quiet, 
rather Christmas-numbery manner, with mild touches of the 
scabreux. It makes for better writing than the broader impro- 
prieties and far more subtle atmospheres. 

The General Staff, in an access of gaiety, have thrown six 
mail-bags into the harbour of an island which shall be nameless. 
So perhaps your last letter "shall suffer a sea change." I 
haven't had it anyway. 

Life is so very quiet, and there seems no end to its peace. 
Our distance from active service seems to increase rather than 
decrease. But I suppose this cannot go on for ever. 

I am every day happier at having left the Staff, and the sight 
of one's own men lying down in line among the stones and 
scrub of these jolly hills warms the blood. I hope I shall be 
brave ; I am sure they will. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, B.M.E.F., 

April 20, 1915. 

One line to say I am still guiltless of blood and that the 
yachtsmen in the Mediterranean pursue their ordinary avoca- 
tions and cruise from island to island. We had some excite- 
ment the day the Manitu was attacked and got a number 
of signals advising us in one sense and the other ; we stuck, 
however, to our course and met with no mishap, hearing later 
in the day that the raider had been scuppered. There are one 
or two men-of-war about here, and occasionally we see 
dummies which would take me in but which deceive no one 
who is an expert at all, so I don't suppose the Germans get 
much hoodwinked. I have been swimming a certain amount 
twice since we have been here, an island smaller than our 
162 



Letters from the JEgean 

previous anchorage, stony, uninhabited, but with wonderful 
wild flowers and humming with bees. Its fragrance meets 
one as one comes into harbour. I like that smell of land. 
Platoon commanding is most amusing, and it is a very good 
thing that I have left the Fvanconia and the General Staff. 
Life is serene and war seems remote. No more now, as I 
must catch mail. 

The following extracts from letters written by Denis Brown and 
Patrick Shaw-Stewart to Miss Lawley from the ^Egean Sea, give some 
idea of their life during this time. — R. 

" There's a fancy dress ball to-night for the men, and 
they're making wonderful confections out of nothing at all ; 
the vain spark in my platoon is going as Queen Elizabeth. 
His skirt is my burberry, his stomacher my cabin curtains ; 
his wimple (not historic, but one must wear something on 
one's head) is a boot-bag, and his veil a blue antiseptic 
bandage. Perhaps he's Queen Eleanor, but as he hasn't heard 
of her, we call him Queen Elizabeth. The rest are rather shy ; 
they are too bashful to go as Greek athletes in a towel, which 
would be charming — and all the most magnificent want to 
go as old dames or niggers." 

" We went to Scyros and lay in harbour there for a week — 
these were the weeks "in which the Mediterranean Force lost 
its chance of doing something in the Peninsula — and there 
were days where we performed evolutions up those beautiful 
but stony hillsides, and there was one day when no one left 
the ship except by great ingenuity, and Charles and I exercised 
it and explored the whole barren southern half of the island 
all through the most perfect spring day, and ate bread and 
milk-cheese given us by a solitary shepherd. He was very 
delicious that day and very ardent — a frame of mind which 
always made me marvel (modern war has never had any 
attraction for me). Before we left Scyros, Rupert Brooke 
died and we were all very sad." 



163 



Charles Lister 

To Lord Ribblcsdale . 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., B.M.E.F., c/o G.P.O., 

May 9, 1915. 

At Scyros we had a blow in the loss of Rupert Brooke. 1 
He died of blood poisoning and we buried him in a grove 
of olives tucked deep in a rocky ravine under Mount Paphlee. 
at Of Ttai Zwouaiv ajjSovtc- 

To the Rev. Ronald Knox. 

April 1915. 

We are now at the last lap, waiting our turn. Our ship is 
anchored in a glassy, sunlit sea — enemy coast on every side — 
not a breath of air, not a sign of movement. It is still a sheer 
impossibility to believe that we are at war. 

To the Same. 

Hood Battalion, B.M.E.F. 

Rupert Brooke died of blood-poisoning caused by a germ 
called the pneumo coccus. He had been rather pulled down 
at Port Said and suffered from the sea, so the p. c. had a 
favourable field to work in. There was no doubt as to 
his fate ; he died within twenty-four hours of the ill making 
itself manifest. He was buried in an olive-grove hidden in a 
ravine thick with scrub that runs from a stony mountain down 
to the sea. The grave is under an olive-tree that bends over it 
like a weeping angel. A sad end to such dazzling purity of 
mind and work, clean cut, classical, and unaffected all the time 

1 Rupert Brooke died in a French Hospital off the Island of Scyros 
April 29, 1915. He was 27 years old. His letters, recently published 
with a preface by the late Mr. Henry James, speak eloquently for his 
reputation and character. 

Mr. Edward Marsh writes me : " Denis told me that Charles was one 
of those who turned the sods of Rupert's grave, and stayed behind after 
the burial and covered the grave with great pieces of white marble."— R. 

164 



Letters from the Mgean 

like his face, unfurrowed or lined by cares. And the eaglet had 
begun to beat his wings and soar. Perhaps the Island of 
Achilles is in some respects a suitable resting-place for those 
bound for the plains of Troy. 



Rupert's was certainly a perfect death, and a very fitting 
close to a fine life ; but it is rather a bitter thought that he 
should have seen none of the soldiering he had devoted himself 
to with such ardour, and that the gift made so gladly should 
have been accepted before Experience gave him any return. 
For any one with a mind alive, this war is primarily a search 
after the new, and appeals keenly to one's sense of curiosity. 



1 6$ 



X 



LANDING OF THE HOOD BATTALION ON THE 
GALLIPOLI PENINSULA 

On June 27th Sir Ian Hamilton wrote to Lady Wilson — 

" The Hood Battalion made a feint of landing up at the head 
of the Gulf of Saros towards evening on April 24th, and con- 
tinued threatening a landing until after dark on the night of 
April 25th. As I wrote you yesterday, the only individual of 
the force who really landed up there was Freyberg." 

This is what happens later as described by Mr. Shaw-Stewart — 

" After several days hanging about we landed on April 29th. 
Then Charles began to scent the battle and to be really happy. 
The third night the battalion went up to the firing-line, and 
took part in the manque advance of May 2nd. That day every 
one who saw him says Charles was superb : he was hit by a 
shrapnel bullet in the retirement and tried to conceal it, till he 
was given away by his breeches being filled with blood — so his 
sergeant told me. That meant a long dreary blank for me, 
especially as Oc. was wounded on May 6th and Denis on 
May 8th. (He came back only to be killed on June 4th.)" 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

May 9, 1915. 

" The next evening (April 30th) the Colonel gave us a little 
address to the effect that now we were in for it, and on the 
morning of Sunday we found ourselves lying off the shore. 
For a day we sat and watched a rather leisurely bombardment 
166 



Landing on Gallipoli Peninsula 

of the little scrub-covered cliff sides and rounded green hills of 
an apparently tranquil coast-line. Not an enemy within miles : 
a sea like glass, and the whole notion of real war still remote 
and illusory, and all this time the landing was being made and 
our foothold on enemy soil dearly bought some fifty miles 
farther down the coast. The next day routine unrelieved was 
the order, and we did Swedish exercises in the sight of the 
enemy — rather sick at heart at these delays. 

We were then moved down to nearer the scene of action, and 
for three days watched our ships pound the hills and woods 
that crowned them. It was a wonderful spectacle, the shrapnel 
going up like little white clouds and then bursting high up and 
sending down a spray of smoke like a firework, and the lyddite 
green and yellow which could only be seen when the shell had 
actually burst on the ground, and looked like some angry 
protest of the gods of the soil, in the form of deadly vaporous 
exhalation from the earth's inner chambers. The row of one's 
own guns is very deafening. The enemy shrapnel make a 
shrill ghostlike scream as it goes through the air overhead, but 
no more. Occasionally little ant-like men could be seen making 
their way up the cliff faces or creeping over the scrub-covered 
hillsides. And once or twice we saw Turks in retreat catching 
it from the ships' guns. 

The night of Thursday we were landed and passed a chilly 
time on a wind-swept plateau-like field with the flare of smoking 
towns on the skyline, as red as a red dawn. The next day 
we passed quickly in digging and landing stores, and occasional 
shells fell in the water near where I was working. That night 
we drank rum and dug ourselves little nests in the heather, so 
we were warm and woke up fresh. We then dug trenches, 
occasional shells passing over our heads. I don't think we were 
ranged : one or two, however, fell just short of us. That night 
at about midnight we were woken by a tremendous volume of 
rifle and machine-gun fire which seemed at our very doors, and 
we passed about an hour in a state of more or less alarm. We 
were then marched out through a marshy ravine overgrown with 
lovely water weeds and olives, grey in the moonlight, to a line 

167 



Charles Lister 

of trenches immediately behind the firing-line and sat tight, 
spent bullets from the firing-line and from rather remote snipers 
whistling over our heads. One of my men got hit. Dawn 
showed our men advancing and many Turkish dead. One of 
our officers who advanced up a certain gully which was the 
critical point of the Turks' attack counted hundreds of dead. 
They must have lost enormously. We then advanced, my 
company in second line. When the leading company had got 
about 2,000 yards or so in front of the front line of fire 
trenches they got heavily shrapnelled by the Turks. With 
no adequate trench cover and no time to dig themselves in and 
no support on either flank. Result : orders to retire. The 
same thing happened to other troops sent through and round 
us. My company being in the second line retired last, and by 
the time we were moving the whole of our front was being 
searched with terrible effect. One of the shrapnel burst on the 
ground about thirty yards behind me and a pellet ricocheted 
the ground and struck me in the off-buttock. I thought it 
was a piece of stone at first. I had already been hit by several 
spent pellets without any effect. One went through coat and 
shirt and hardly marked my skin ; another knocked in my 
water-bottle. However, this third one found its billet, and I 
was soon bleeding like a pig and walking indifferent well — I 
never fell down. It was an irritating moment, as I should have 
been there to rally our boys after the retirement. They did 
well, considering the trying circs, and their relative rawness. 
I never saw a Turk within shooting distance : the other com- 
panies did, and did some execution ; not much, I fancy. I was 
under fair shell fire for about one hour or so and light attentions 
from snipers. One bullet went between me and my petty 
officer as we sat together. The battalion has since been in the 
firing-line all the time and done very well, getting a bayonet 
charge on one occasion. I should like to get back quick, 
because I have seen just enough to tantalize. It is rather like 
love-making in this. The mise en scene was magnificent, and 
there is no sound like the scream of enemy shrapnel through 
the sky. 
1 68 



Landing on Gallipoli Peninsula 

My return to the beach was easily accomplished for me on 
a stretcher, not so easily perhaps for the poor orderlies who 
had to carry me, and I had a feeling of great peace as I lay 
on my back and looked at the blue overhead. I was then 
put on to a lighter and then on to a trawler, which was full of 
wounded, slight cases for the most part, and there we were, 
rather toasted by the close proximity of the boilers. Here I 
saw several of our people ; we dropped about eight officers or 
so, slightly wounded in every case ; as to men I don't really 
know, so I will give no figure — certainly not more than eighty 
and very few killed, but it happened all within an hour or so. 
From the trawler we went on to an Anchor Line ship, a 
dowdy old boat but comfortable enough. Rather a shortage 
of doctors to cope with the numbers on board — and to bed 
in our battle shirts. I found our adjutant here and one of 
our company commanders, so I wasn't lonely. I saw no 
very distressing case except a poor man who had been hit in 
the back of the head and had a compound fracture in the 
thigh and was quite off his chump — and my next-door neigh- 
bour. We did what we could for him. 

I write from Alexandria, where we went, after a short wait, 
round the scene of action's vicinity for more wounded. I saw 
Letty and Mary Charteris here and Harry. 1 All the 2nd 
Mounted Division are here now ; and it was a great pleasure 
seeing the boys once more. Mary was in great looks. Letty 
rather pale. It is a Capua this place, and full of rank and 
fashion. So the wounded, no matter how slightly, have much 
sympathy. My injury was rather doubted, and I fear I was 
not in a position to give optical proof. But " Blessed are they 
who have not seen, yet have believed." Off we go to Malta 
now. I shall be back again soon — a week or so. 

1 Sir Mathew Wilson, in command of the 2nd Mounted Division. — R. 



J 69 



XI 

CONSTANTINOPLE DURING JULY AND 
AUGUST 1914 

In the leisure and comfort of the Blue Sisters Convent Hospital at 
Malta, whilst recovering from his first wound, Charles wrote, in the 
form of a letter to me, a full and graphic account of the run of events 
and the varying phases of feeling at Constantinople during the months 
of July, August, and September 1914. 

This MSS. letter — much of it in pencil — worked out to over 15000 
words when I had it typed and suggested to me the possibility of getting 
together his letters, for he had several more or less regular corre- 
spondents besides his sisters and myself. The Vice-Provost of Eton, 
to whom I had shown the MSS., encouraged me to do so, and the Blue 
Sisters letter thus became responsible for this volume. 

I should have liked to use the MSS., just as he wrote it, but this was 
not his own wish. Writing to me on June 3, 1915, he begged me to get 
it typed quickly, but added that he did not think it " could be used for 
a time," so I reluctantly defer and confine myself here to a few selected 
passages. On the news of the death of the Archduke Charles tells us 
"long faces were pulled by those who wished to appear knowing," but 
entertainments and dinners went on much as usual. — R. 

We gazed on distant war-clouds through the light glow 
of Japanese lanterns. . . . The change came with the publi- 
cation of the Austrian Note. The feeling that predominated 
at Constantinople at the outset was more or less a reflection 
of that which, as far as we could see, obtained in London ; 
sympathy with Austria was considerable amongst diplomats. 
Austrians are generally liked as personalities, and from 
Constantinople the Serb can be observed rather too closely 
to pass for a chevalier sans reproche. I had just been a 
trip to New Serbia, and returned with unfavourable impres- 
170 



Constantinople, July-August, 1914 

sions. The Italians were upset about the turn of events. 
They had wanted that year to take their course and hatch 
out the Austria-Serb conflict in due time when Italy would 
be ready to play her hand. The premature announcement 
was not to their liking. The French had, from the outset, 
a rather clearer vision than ourselves of the German behind 
the scenes. The Germans in conversation were quite un- 
equivocal in their approval of Austria's action, and were 
decidedly "out" to make us think that after all there would 
be no trouble. They sometimes said that the Austrians 
would climb down as they had done before. At other 
times they were full of stories of mutinies on the Black Sea 
front, Russian unpreparedness, and so on. The first and 
last time I dined at the German Embassy, Von Wangenheim 
was on this tack. As the crisis took its course we saw less 
of our German colleagues. 

At this time, even amongst " the intimates " of the Young Turk Party, 
there seems to have been complete ignorance of Enver's intentions. 
Charles goes on to say — 

The Turks, I fancy, in so far as they understood it all, 
were in the first phase not sorry that Serbia was to get a 
trouncing. Later, they rejoiced in the thought that thieves 
would fall out and honest men come by their own, and they 
calculated on a Turkish re-conquest of Salonica, for Greece 
was at that time their bete-noir. 

On a long railway journey, from Smyrna to Constantinople — we had 
by this time come " in " as belligerents — Charles says — 

My train was packed with soldiers answering the call. 
They seemed already rather German in their sympathies and 
not unwilling to be again called to the colours, but friendly 
to me as an individual. 

Previously — that is before we came in — he says — 

At Constantinople there had reigned the leaden calm which 
precedes a storm. The days of suspense when it was a question 

171 



Charles Lister 

whether we would participate were very grim, and all that time 
we carefully avoided our French and Russian colleagues. We 
felt a sort of shame about meeting them. During the time that 
followed, after my journey from Smyrna, we at least knew we 
were men. Work grew brisk enough ; reports from the pro- 
vinces poured in. The Turks had viewed our entrance into the 
field with mixed feelings ; they had hoped we should look on 
and, in company with themselves, play the part of the fox that 
sucked the bone for which the lions were fighting. They were 
rather impressed by our intervention ; but I doubt if they 
thought we could really do much to benefit our allies, who in 
their view were certain to be beaten crushingly. The Turk has 
very little idea of sea power as a factor in war. He imagined 
that England could not come to very much harm, but he could 
not conceive sea power as an aggressive force in world warfare. 

In Government circles pro-German feeling was on the 
increase, and reached its climax with the arrival of the Goeben, 
following closely on the embargo we had placed on the ships 
Armstrongs were building for Turkey. 

All these days the Ambassador was on leave; 1 he returned 
soon after the Goeben arrived, to find the situation compromised 
beyond hope. The initial error had been in our impartial 
recognition of the transfer of the German ships to Turkey. 
Once that had been conceded ; once we had failed to demand 
internment in a certain time, and, failing such internment, sent 
our ships up the Narrows — then but little mined — we could 
only work for the postponement of the final rupture between 
Turkey and the Triple Entente Powers. All sorts of rumours 
were rife as to the condition in which the Goeben had arrived ; 
and for a long time she failed to make an appearance. We all 
thought Germany was waiting to see the Goeben restored to 
health before she finally pushed Turkey over the brink. The 

1 Sir Louis du Pan Mallet, K.C.M.G., became Ambassador to Turkey 
in the early part of 1913. He had previously been Private Secretary to 
Sir Edward Grey (1905-7) and Assistant Under-Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs (1907-13). — R. 

172 



Constantinople, July-August 1914 

fateful date was to be September nth ; this was the date fixed 
for a great naval review in which the whole Turkish fleet 
was to take part. The review made less impression than was 
expected. 

The Goeben appears to have done nothing to disturb the peace — 

She used to sail up with her band playing, packed with 
German sailors — not a Turk in sight — and made a point of 
passing very close to the Russian Embassy at Therapia. The 
chief impression she gave was one of great breadth amidships. 

. . . The Goeben, however, was not the sole symbol of German 
domination. One day, on the polo ground, we met some appar- 
ently Turkish soldiers who had obviously lost their way. They 
were spoken to in Turkish by the Zaptieh hard by, but without 
success. Then one of our Russian colleagues brought himself to 
speak the enemy tongue, and it transpired that these men had 
been deliberately brought in from Germany to garrison Turkish 
forts. Trainloads, in fact, arrived daily. After the taking of 
Brussels, Djavid said to a Belgian friend of mine : "/'at une 
nouvelle pour vous — les Allemands sont entris a, Bruxelles?' He 
answered : " Et moi, excellence, fat une nouvelle pour vous — les 
Allemands sont entres a Constantinople? 

This is what he has to say of the German Ambassador at this time — 

The figure which stands out amid the multitudinous detail 
and petty incident of these days is that of Von Wangenheim. 
He was a tall, well-made man with a dark, lowering face, some- 
what marked by duelling scars, and a close-cut moustache. 
His features were well cut and their pose solid. There was a 
grimness about the clean-shaven chin and a cold stare about 
the sunken blue-green eyes. I liked the man. He was very 
fond of horses, and actually took the trouble to get hunters all 
the way out from Ireland for the Constantinople drag hunt. In 
his Junker way he liked the English, and was very hospitable to 
us in better times. He talked very freely to every one, and as 
early as June, after a brief visit to Berlin — where it was supposed 
he would take up Von Jagow's position — used to inform his 

172 



Charles Lister 

barber every morning that "the war" would take place in the 
autumn or late summer. To the young he was full of chatter, 
and flattered them by his anxiety to hear their views. While 
German influence was stronger and more uncontested than in 
Marschall's time, I do not think Wangenheim ever bulked so 
large in the eyes of the Turks as his massive predecessor. He 
lacked the quiet strength, the awful silences of Marschall, and 
could never control his natural excitability. Morning after 
morning he used to sweep round the neutral Embassies like a 
tornado with reports of German successes, which in due time 
kind friends repeated to us. . . . The Goeben and Breslau used 
often to set forth under his orders, and his control of the Turkish 
military and naval organizations was complete, except in so far 
as he had differences with Liman von Sanders, a hot-head who 
managed to quarrel with every one sooner or later. Liman's 
temper was reported to be even less under control than 
Wangenheim's nerves. . . . 

Liman was certainly of the view, shortly before the war, that 
the Turkish army was quite incapable of taking the field, and he 
told Enver as much. When the fat was in the fire he had to 
box the compass, and has since been engaged in a task he has 
known from the outset to be hopeless. All the time I was in 
Turkey, members of the German military mission took the line 
that the task was impossible ; they said they disliked the Turks, 
thought them stupid and unteachable, and despaired of any 
results. I have often wondered if the Germans at Constanti- 
nople were unanimous on the question of the advisability of 
bringing Turkey into the war. . . . 

It is difficult for us to make out the Turks' attitude towards 
Germany. I don't think the Turk has any liking for the 
German ; he looks on him as useful, and has boundless 
confidence in his efficiency. It was this conviction, that 
Germany was sure to j win, which had to be met. . . . 

There is, after all, something to be said for those who were 
throughout convinced that it was in Turkey's interest to go to 
war on Germany's side, such as Enver and others of the soldiers. 
Turkey could alone hope from the Central European Powers 

174 



Constantinople, July-August 1914 

for any reversal of the Balkan settlement arrived at in 191 3 ; 
France was herself at war and therefore unable to lend Turkey 
money. This fact precluded any possibility of peaceful re- 
generation and raised the spectre of internal disruption and 
the fall of the Enver regime. Add to this the dazzling nature 
of the German promises. 

Charles thus describes his impression of the Grand Vizier's attitude 
towards European intervention and advice in Turkish affairs — 

He [the Grand Vizier] was a good French scholar and 
pugnacious in conversation, but a very oriental Oriental. He 
was never happy in the Stamboul frock-coat, and in the morning 
wore Arab costume. Before the Central Powers days he used 
to beg his Western friends to keep their enterprise and finance 
away from Turkey ; Europe was trying to get the Turk to 
do things that were beyond his power ; the Turk was too 
stupid to organize himself in any way : his only chance was 
to stagnate and remain in the East — speeding up he declared 
to be hopeless. 

The role played by such a man in the present drama is 
enigmatic. He was, I think, sincere enough in his wish to keep 
the peace, for he saw the risks attending a rupture. He failed 
to realize the impossibility of playing with German influence, 
backed as it was by the Goeberi's guns, and thought to the last 
that he could avert the inevitable. He remained in office, 
telling himself, perhaps, that he will be the influence for 
moderation, and that he will enable Turkey to cut her losses by 
his diplomatic skill. Then he liked prominence. He realized 
that he could only appear equal to certain of his colleagues by 
retaining his tinsel trappings of high office, and that, German 
influence apart, he had never been really master in his own 
house. His devotion to Enver was almost doglike. My chief, 
in happier days, dined with the latter at a huge banquet and 
the Grand Vizier was also present. Throughout the repast he 
drew Enver out and made him tell stories of his marvellous 
escapes, asking him for his views as to Destiny, and other high 
subjects ; listening to the oracle in speechless amazement. 

175 



Charles Lister 

In all these grave contingencies and complications it appears that — 

the dogs of the enemy embassies refused to recognize the state 
of war ; the VVangenheims had to pass our demesne to go for 
their evening ride, and their greyhound bitch Fly never 
missed the opportunity thus afforded of paying a friendly visit 
to an Irish terrier, Mike, of Nicolson's, and a bull-terrier pup 
then under my care. Fly was at times accompanied by a 
pointer, spotted, grim, and underhung, who was sometimes on 
the verge of blows with Mike. 

Mike was equally without political conscience, and we 
sometimes had to enter enemy territory to lure him from the 
Calypso-like charms of Fly. 

This is also a passage of not unpleasing interest — 

During the early days of the war Wangenheim rode for more 
than an hour with the huntsman of the Constantinople drag- 
hounds — Maiden by name — who had been huntsman to Sir 
Watkin Wynn and had fallen from this high estate to a measly 
£go a year, plus a residence on an upland farm buried in the 
woods above the polo ground. His Excellency was full of 
commiseration for the poor English who had been bungled 
into the war against their will and interests ; who had lost one 
army at Mons, and who were bound to go under. There 
seemed to be nothing of the "Hymn of Hate" spirit in him ; 
nothing but pity " for his good friends." On more than one 
occasion, too, he talked to others of an early peace wrung from 
France, of a guerre Platonique with England, ending in the 
union of Western Powers against Russia as Kultur's arch-foe. 
As events developed his tone changed. 

Charles's application to the Foreign Office for a year's leave of absence 
from his post was at last successful. 

I left [he writes] about a month before the final rupture. 

Events took their course, and the Turk, as the successor to the 

Emperors of the East, took his place at the side of the man he 

believed to be the Emperor of the West, to divide with him the 

176 



Constantinople, July- August 1914 

world's spoils. In the same spirit, moving along the same 
groove of historic fatality, the Turk of a former era coquetted 
with Napoleon, to be hauled back from the abyss by the strong 
hand of Sir Stratford Canning, but Sir Stratford had not to 
contend with the guns of the Goeben. 



N 177 



XII 

WITH THE DARDANELLES EXPEDITION 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Blue Sisters Convent, Malta, 

May 16, 1915. 

It is lucky this place has been built under Spanish influence 
and escaped the Acridities of the Italian baroque, which was 
oozing into its most luxurious form about the time the knights 
came here and started to build, in about the sixteenth or seven- 
teenth century. The part I like best is the little Vittoriosa 
harbour, where the admiral lives. It is a narrow inlet of bril- 
liantly blue water, like a canal of Venice, with great palazzos 
with pilastered facades here and there, and jolly little jutting- 
out flat-roofed houses with ship's images over the door. All the 
roofs are flat, and geraniums grow in the windows. My con- 
vent is not actually in Valetta, but on a hill called St. Julians, 
and I am most comfortable with the nuns. They are Irish and 
charmers, and wear little blue head-dresses — Eton blue — which 
hang down their backs like veils. My wound is practically 
healed up, but I was unfortunate enough to find the bullet, 
and the doctor is determined to have it out, and I have not 
sufficient strength of will to withstand him. It is, after all, 
hard luck. He has had scarcely a single case on which he 
could operate among our lot, and I should feel under a 
grievance at that if I was a surgeon — wouldn't you ? My 
operation will not be a severe one, and I shall be back again 
in a short time — say a week. So write to the old address, if 
the fancy takes you. 
178 



Dardanelles Expedition 

I can tell you nothing of what is happening at the scene of 
action from here, and feel in a complete fog about it and dying 
to pierce the gloom and hear something. This sort of enforced 
absence feeds me up, and I'd give anything to know what the 
battalion was doing. Oc. was hit about three days after me, 
I gather, and not very badly, though the Italian papers said 
gravamente ferito. I hear Princess Teano has been over in 
England looking over Red Cross things, etc. I suppose the 
Italians will be in by the time you get this. This new factor is 
in our interests on the whole, as the Adriatic question will not 
be solved in a sense so wholly favourable to the Slav if Italy 
figures in the conference after the war as a participant, and 
therefore more entitled to a hearing than if she were simply 
there as a neutral. It also cuts off another food supply from 
Germany. But we can win without her. 

I saw Ivor Windsor 1 at tea at St. Antonio yesterday. He 
is in great form and very busy. They have done a lot for the 
wounded, on their own, organized accommodation for six thou- 
sand. It is badly wanted, as the actual accommodation on the 
spot has been lamentably deficient, and has entailed casting the 
wounded about on transports from port to port with a very 
inadequate number of doctors and orderlies on board. 

Alexandria was Capua, le tout Londres. But here [too] 
there seem quite a number of people — though such tired 
warriors. The beauties here are for the most part floral; 
though the flapper del popolo is occasionally of dazzling beauty, 
she wears off as soon as the southern Italian, and becomes 
hunchbacked, wrinkled, and frog-like. 

The Maltese come up between six and seven to our hospital, 
and crowd round the doors and are most effusive ; funny black 
dresses, with black cotton gloves and toques. We are the sort 
of "lions" that don't bite. You would have laughed at our 
reception on the quay. Le tout Malte turned out covered 
with brassards and badges of the Red Cross, and the ladies 
lavished on us slabs of Fry's chocolate and glasses of rather 
tepid lemonade, and cigarettes. I never smoke cigarettes, but 
1 A.D.C. to Lord Methuen. 

179 



Charles Lister 

could not say " nay " to such a charmer as the young lady who 
made me the offer. She is almost as good-looking as you are. 
The Maltese are very pious — one hears bells going all the day 
ong. I like it, it is soothing. You would like the Governor's 1 
country palace. The garden is a paradise — orange groves and 
pergolas of geraniums and little loggias covered with creepers. 



To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Blue Sisters Convent, Malta, 

May 25, 1916. 

Ever so many thanks for your letters, which gave me so much 
pleasure. 

You will have heard from father of the details of my 
wounding. 

I have had the pellet actually removed now — being subject 
to an operation about a week ago, and am now stitched up and 
a little gash near the groin. The pellet worked right round. 
I expect I shall be fit for duty shortly. 

I am splendidly looked after at the convent by some de- 
lightful nuns, who are excellent nurses and angels of kind- 
ness. They put themselves to every sort of trouble, and are 
most anxious about our welfare. They make a marvellous 
open jam - tart, and their pastry generally is worthy of the 
highest encomiums. So with all this there is little to com- 
plain of. 

I always thought that the Italians would come in, but I am 
rather surprised they have entered on war so soon, and at this 
moment the Russians are doing indifferently. Evidently the 
Salandra Government must have been determined on war for 
some time, and under the impression that longer delay would 
give the enemy more time to put his defence in order and 
recast his arrangement of forces. War is the only way the 
Italians will obtain the Trentino and Trieste, and the crushing 
of the Central Empires the only guarantee that they will 

1 Lord Methuen, 
180 



Dardanelles Expedition 

retain any acquisitions they make. Were they to accept the 
Austrian offer, and remain neutral, they would find that after 
a few years of peace Austria would take back what she had 
given, if she were able to do so. She must therefore be really 
knocked out, and the best way for Italy to ensure this is for 
her to take a hand in the game. It is in British interests that 
Italy should voice her views at the conference which will end 
this war as a participant, not as a neutral. As a participant she 
has more claim to be heard, and if Italy is at the conference 
simply as a neutral, Adriatic questions will be settled in a sense 
wholly favourable to Slav aspiration. 

Lord Methuen 1 has been most kind to me, and as soon as my 
stitches are a little more healed than they are at present I shall 
go and stay at St. Antonio, 2 which is his country villa, a lovely 
spot, with marvellous geraniums in great masses all over pergolas. 
You would admire them. It is a great flower country, all over 
the fortifications there are lovely dollops of bougainvillia. 

To Edward Horner. 

Blue Sisters Convent, Malta, 

May 25, 1915. 

I am so sorry to hear that you have been wounded, and I 
must write one line. P. got your letter en route for Scyros 
about your having got a load of earth on the torso, so I suppose 
this is a new injury. 

My military history has been a record of futility. Two 

1 Writing to me May 1915 from the Palace, Malta, Lord Methuen 
says : " Having done my best to break your leg, the least I can do is to 
look after your son. Finding hospital accommodation for 7,000 men 
and all its attendant complications, makes me appropriate your son in a 
few days as extra A.D.C. He can remain until a wounded Scots Guards- 
man comes here for rest, and if your son is not well and is happy he can 
stay on. He has an old Eton friend in Windsor." 

Lord Methuen's horse kicked me with very considerable violence on my 
patched-up left leg in a gateway, out hunting with the Duke of Beaufort's 
hounds in March 1914. — R. 

• The Palace of the Knights of Rhodes.— B. W. C. 

I8l 



Charles Lister 

months' cruise in the Mediterranean, then three days watch- 
ing the battle from afar off; then three days on shore, ending 
in an hour or two under shell fire and my wound in the back- 
side. I shall be back again in about a fortnight, and I think 
I want to be, as I've had so very little show. If I'd been longer 
there I might feel differently. I hate being nursed. 

I am at a convent . . . the atmosphere of piety — smiling and 
unruffled — is very congenial to me. They also make a very 
good tipsy-cake and an open jam-tart beyond praise. I have 
a jolly Maltese doctor who quotes Dante to me. 

Leonie Leslie is here with Shane. She is, I fear, very sad, 
but wonderfully brave. He is very interesting about Parnell. 
I have just read Mrs. O'Shea's Life of him. It doesn't appear 
from the letters that P.'s intervention on behalf of O'S. in 1886 
was a concession to blackmailing on the latter's part, as the 
Irish M.P.'s say, or that there was a real minage-a-trois. Had 
there been the slightest suspicion of a minage-a-trois at that 
time, it would have come out in the divorce and O'S. would not 
have got his verdict. Gladstone's trustees, it is supposed, sup- 
pressed what conversation passed between him and Mrs. O'S. 
This is a pity. She makes many statements to the effect that 
she was a go-between for Parnell with Mr. G., but cannot sub- 
stantiate them. If Mr. G. knew of their relationship all along, 
his sudden horror in 1890, at the time of the divorce case, is 
rather a poser, though I do not of course see why he should 
have shown himself a moralist while O'Shea continued to be 
accommodating. 

O'Shea is not at all the sort of loathsome, souteneur, book- 
maker type the ordinary " lives " represent him as, but a very 
intelligent observer and a gentleman, which was the reason for 
the dislike of the Irish members. His comments on the states- 
men of the day are most illuminating. He sized up Lord 
Salisbury very well as "a really weak man." His friendship 
with Chamberlain seems to have been one of genuine 
comradeship. 

Parnell turns into the strange, mist-enveloped silhouette of 
the mediaeval alchemist. His interest in astronomy, his efforts 
182 



Dardanelles Expedition 

to get gold out of quartz, and his childish beliefs and super- 
stitions make one even more conscious of his utter remoteness 
and intangibility. He thought much on death and its terrors, 
and yet was a man of marvellous courage — a mediaeval trait, 
I think. I can't make him out at all. I suppose his intense 
refinement and high-strung nervous system found just what 
was wanted in Mrs. O'S.'s liberalness. Parnell's mind seems to 
have been clear and comprehensive but not subtle, and his 
power of expression and turning a phrase limited except when 
dealing with broad issues. 

I have also read the Koran — or rather most of it — and will let 
you know what I think of it. The Prophet is as insistent on the 
genuineness of his mission and the virtues of his book as the 
popularizer of a patent medicine, but has considerable lyrical 
gift. But more of him later. Bless you. 



To the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham. 

Blue Sisters, Malta, 

May 27, 1915. 

What I meant by the Naval Division being a " washout " was 
that it is not being used as a division. The battalions are 
attached to other brigades of the 29th Division, and have 
individually done very well and suffered very severe losses. I 
think the chances of its being worked as a division were always 
slight, as it had no divisional artillery or cavalry. So long as 
this campaign lasts / can't think of going back. Now that more 
of our men are coming out it is possible that the Naval Division 
may again become a unit. The news of the Majestic is rather 
disquieting. I think the submarines have appeared on the 

scene just too late. Had they come earlier in the day 

Even now it will be awkward if the ships have to discontinue 
their work in any way till the submarines are bagged. Opera- 
tions on land seem to have settled down into normal trench 
warfare. Reinforcements constantly pass through here — in- 
cluding crowds of doctors and nurses. 

183 



Charles Lister 

My pellet was extracted more than a week ago now, and 
the gash is not yet healed up. The operation was painless 
enough, as they froze the spot, and well done by my charming 
Maltese doctor. Even the stitch he put in a day or two later 
did not hurt. But I am immobilized and take no strong drink, 
so it is rather dull, and makes me so dependent on cabs. I have 
got through a lot of reading, including Mrs. O'Shea's Life of 
Parnell and the Koran, besides numerous novels of the lighter 
order. I have also nearly finished my retrospect, which I shall 
send you if you are still in England, or father or Laura, if you 
are not. I am sorry to say that my naval capacity has received 
acknowledgment from the naval hospital authorities, and that 
on Monday I am to leave my dear Blue Sisters and be put into 
the naval hospital, which is a sort of prison life. No leave 
to go out before two o'clock, and you have to be back before 
six o'clock. With the Blue Sisters we have perfect freedom, 
and are so well fed and looked after. They are all saints, but 
in some cases really wasted as spouses of Christ — pretty, fresh- 
complexioned, bright girls, nearly all. It is also a nuisance 
leaving my doctor, who knows my case, etc. But my bondage 
will not be of long duration, as I am fit now but for the silly slice 
in my thigh. 

The Italian paper now publishes, day by day, snippets from 
the Italian Libro Verde, and it is of interest to see what efforts 
the Germans especially made to keep the Italians neutral — as 
it shows Italian intervention to be rather a serious blow. The 
Austrians seem to have been, as usual, une pensee en arrie~re 
and sceptical as to the extent to which Italy was prepared to 
make herself unpleasant. The Italians have up till now — I have 
read the L. V. up till the middle of February — conducted the 
argument with great skill and show of legality. 

Mrs. Leslie has been a great standby, and introduced me 
to some nice Maltese. 1 A Roman archaeologist — English — has 
been digging here lately, and I have seen something of him, 

* Amongst others whom Charles refers to especially as having been 
most kind and welcome friends at Malta are Mrs. Lawson and her 
two daughters, all of whom he admired. — R. 

184 



Dardanelles Expedition 

which was a nice link with Roman days. Otherwise, except 
for its bookish side, life has been uneventful and dull. If 
I'd known I was going to be here so long you might have come 
out ; but, alas, we never know, and I didn't want to suggest it in 
case I should be bundled off. Miss Maxine Elliott and Angela 
Forbes have done finely in this war. I suppose they have a 
prompt understanding of human needs. Father cabled me that 
Julian was still in danger, but better than might have been 
expected. I am very upset about him. I have written to him. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

No date. 

Lord Methuen was most kind to me. I went about with him 
round hospitals in being or in preparation. He has worked 
like a Trojan, and his charm of manner to the men and nurses 
and doctors must hearten them up in their work. He is a 
marvellous walker, and if you lose sight of him for ten minutes, 
he is round the corner and three hundred yards down the 
street, and you have to be after him at the double. 

I stayed about four days at the Palace, and was much 
pleased with the Marsala there ; but I am better without, I 
think, as it heats the blood and raises bumps, which I've 
lost since I got on board and put myself on to whisky and 
soda. As a senator I am sure you would have applauded 
Lord Methuen's eloquent harangue to the " Dcblins " and 
" Munsterrs," many of whom are now convalescent, on the 
drink question. There is no holding these brave fellows ; the 
Australians are like a young ladies' school in comparison. 

To the Same. 

Blue Sisters Convent, 

May 29, 191 5. 

God ! how sad it is about Julian. It's the bitterest blow 
I have had since this war and am likely to have. You must 

185 



Charles Lister 

not make reservation about the " ultimately satisfactory issue." 
I'd sooner spend my life in trenches than have any other 
issue. 

You will see that I did not have very long of war's alarms, 
and that our performances that morning, through no fault 
of our own, were hardly brilliant. If the CO. had not retired 
us we should have been annihilated — perhaps cut off, as the 
Turks were gathering on our flanks. Since then the battalion 
has done very well and seen a lot of fighting. That day 
they showed great steadiness for raw troops, but their situation 
was impossible. 



To Lady Desborough. 

Blue Sisters Convent, Malta, 

June 3, 1915. 

I can't write what I feel about dear Julian. The void is so 
terrible for me and the thought of it quite unmans me. I'd 
so few ties with the life I left when I went abroad — so few, 
that is to say, that I wanted to keep, and I always felt as 
sure of Julian's love as he did of mine, and so certain of seeing 
his dear old smile just the same. We did not often write 
of anything of that sort just for that reason, and now the whole 
thing has gone. How much worse it must be for you and 
yours. All of us loved him so, and I'm sure if I were back 
with father and Diana we should be in the depths and feel 
almost worse than I do now that one of our nearest and 
dearest has gone. 

I suppose that if death meant wholly loss, all recollections 
would be wholly bitter ; but the consciousness that we are 
recalling memories of one who may still be near us makes 
recollection precious, an abiding realization of what is, and 
not a mere regret for what has ceased to be. 

I suppose everybody noticed dear Julian's vitality, but I 
don't think they were so conscious of that great tenderness 
of heart that underlay it. He always showed it most with you, 
186 



Dardanelles Expedition 

and with women generally it was his special charm. I think 
now of the way he used to take my hand if he had felt 
disappointed with anything I'd done and then found out why 
I'd done it. I remember a time when he was under the im- 
pression I'd chucked Socialism for the " loaves and fishes," etc., 
and of course that sort of thing he couldn't abide, and he 
thought this for a longish while, then found out that it 
wasn't that after all, and took my hand in his in the most 
loving way. 

£X don't suppose many people knew of the ardent love he 
had for honesty of purpose and intellectual honesty, and what 
sacrifices he made for them, and sacrifices of peace of mind 
abhorrent to most Englishmen. The Englishman is a base 
seeker after happiness, and he will make most sacrifices of 
principle and admit any number of lies into his soul to secure 
this dear object of his. It is want of courage on its negative 
side, this quality — and swinish greed on its positive side — the 
man in his search for truth and in his search for what he 
believed to be his true self caused himself no end of worry 
and unhappiness, and was a martyr who lit his own fires with 
unflinching nerve. Out stalking he always wanted to do his 
own work, and he was just the same in his inner life. Surely 
the Lady he sought with tireless faith, the Lady for whom 
he did and dared so much on lonely paths, will now reward 
him ? God, it is glorious to think of a soul so wholly devoid 
of the pettiness and humbug, the cynicism and dishonesty, of 
so much that we see. There is a story in one of Miss Kings- 
ley's books of a West African medicine-man who found him- 
self at death's door. He applied all his herbs and spells and 
conducted all his well-worn rites before his idols, and with 
his friend's intercessions, without any effect. At last he 
wearied of his hocus-pocus, and took his idols and charms 
down to the seashore and flung them into the surf, and he 
said, " Now I will be a man and meet my God alone." Julian 
from the time I knew him had flung away his idols and had 
met God. His intense moral courage distinguished him even 
more than his physical bravery from the run of common men — 

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Charles Lister 

and his physical bravery was remarkable enough, whether he 
was hunting, boxing, or whatever he was at. 

I think he found his true self on what we all knew would be 
the scene of his glory, and it is some melancholy satisfaction 
that his services received recognition. What must make you 
still happier must be the glorious glowing tone of those letters 
of his, and the knowledge that his last few months were 
crowded hours of glorious life, stronger than death in that 
they abide. I shall never forget how much they heartened 
me when I came to see you to get your kind offices for this 
show. The recollection of them will be a constant strength. 
No one wrote of the war like that or talked of it that way, 
and so many went from leave or after healing wounds as a 
duty, but without joy. Julian, apart from the physical delight 
he had in combat, felt keenly, I am sure, that he was doing 
something worth while, the thing most worth while in the 
world, and looked on death and the passing beyond as a 
final burst into glory. He was rather Franciscan in his love 
of all things that are, and in his absence of fear of all God's 
creatures — death included. 

He stood for something very precious to me — for an Eng- 
land of my dreams made of honest, brave, and tender men, 
and his life and death have surely done something towards the 
realization of that England. Julian had so many friends who 
felt for him as they felt for no one else, and a fierce light 
still beats on the scene of his passing, and others are left to 
whom he may leave his sword and a portion of his skill. 

You must have known all this splendour of Julian's life far 
better than I did, so I don't know why I should write all 
this. But I am so sad myself that I must say something to 
you, and because you knew how very fond I was of Julian. 

One can seek comfort at this time in the consciousness of 
the greatness of our dead, and the work they have left behind 
them, and the love we have borne them : and such comfort is 
surely yours, apart from any larger hope. 



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Dardanelles Expedition 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Blue Sisters, 

June 3, 1915. 

My own injuries are fast healing, and at the end of the 
week I shall see my naval people and ask for a berth back to 
Gallipoli. By dint of intriguing I have saved B. and myself 
from durance vile in Bight Hospital, where the naval authorities 
wanted to move me, and where I should have to have kept 
fixed hours and lived up almost two hundred steps in a sort 
of eagle's nest. 

Ashmead Bartlett has been here, home bound. He was 
blown up on the Majestic and escaped, but without his note- 
books, etc., which I believe contain scathing denunciations of all 
those in authority, and which are just as well at the bottom of 
the sea. He will talk when he gets home. I hope he will get 
us more men sent out ; but his tone is pessimistic and his state- 
ments exaggerations, which he qualifies by about 75 per cent, 
in his next sentence. So perhaps they will take no notice of 
him. The Turks are exhausting themselves by these attacks on 
our trenches and losing great numbers, and with a few more 
men we could do the trick soon enough. It would be hopeless 
loss of face if we chucked up now. I don't think we can. My 
only fear is Ashmead may paint in such gloomy colours that 
the Harmsworth Press may plump for a complete bunk. 
This would be appalling and, I think, impossible. Our hold 
is really very firm now, and it's simply a question of more men 
to effect our advance. I shouldn't write like this, only people 
at home have become such funksticks and seem only good 
for anti-German riots in Shoreditch. I should have thought 
there were other places where the readers of the Harmsworth 
Press could take part in anti-German demonstrations. 

I always supposed the Government contemplated some un- 
popular measure like conscription when they called in the 
Unionist leaders for this Coalition, and am glad to see you 
think that may be the reason. I quite understand their wish- 
ing the responsibility to be shared. The same considerations 

189 



Charles Lister 

would apply were it necessary for the Allies to conclude a 
peace falling short of popular anticipations, though I cannot 
conceive such a peace being so much as discussed at this 
moment. 

Madame * * * I am told, said the Italians contemplated 
three months' war, and they have subscribed to the London 
Agreement of some time ago, relative to the Allies not nego- 
tiating separately, etc. 

To Mrs. Cornish. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

June ii, 1915. 

I have at last read Thackeray and must write to you, because 
you used to show me his drawings at Eton and tell me what 
a world was in store for me. 

I read Pendennis and am now at Vanity Fair. I don't 
know which I like best. Pendennis is on a more tenuis 
avena, and I think the satire, the little vignettes of literary 
London, of the London of servants, is better put in, with more 
subtlety and good humour, than in Vanity Fair. I think 
Thackeray loves old Major Pendennis, but really dislikes 
Becky, who I consider a much more likeable and admirable 
fraud. I spare much needless pity on Becky, and I'm sure I 
should have married her if she would have married me. But 
Pendennis is spoilt by the Fanny Bolton episodes, and the book 
is so largely made up of the telling of estrangements between 
son and mother, which one feels are of a kind that could not 
possibly have come into being on such slight occasions. I 
suppose we have all passed through the school of the larger 
charity taught by the Russians, and cannot understand Helen's 
readiness to believe the worst and treat her son's flirt so cruelly. 
I like the touch in Pendennis where Arthur, after having been 
most affectionate the whole evening to poor little Fanny, 
tells her that she must always call him " Sir " or " Mr. Pen- 
dennis," as their "stations in life were so different." In our 
greatest intimacies we still reach out over deep gulfs of class 
190 



Dardanelles Expedition 

differences. Perhaps the dead of the war, side by side, may fill 
these up. Pendennis gave me such sheer pleasure from its remote- 
ness from present days. The word " Przemysl " never occurred 
once in its pages. Vanity Fair in those Waterloo chapters is 
a poignant gripping emotion and gives one pain — the kind of 
pain one would not miss for anything — and one thinks of dear 
Diana, in Amelia Sedley's place, waiting for the news of the 
heroic stand of the Coldstreams at Landrecies. These chapters 
are self-contained, a piece of magnificent life drama, with all 
life's rapid passages from laughter to tears, and smallnesses 
to epic valour. I wish Becky had liked her little boy. 
I feel Thackeray had made her so charming that he felt 
he must put something in to make her unpleasant and justify 
his own dislike of her. I think Sir Pitt is a masterpiece 
— both Sir Pitt senior and junior. I'm sure Sir Pitt junior 
only took to religion from want of occupation, or perhaps a 
desire to please Lady Southdown. How he rises in the canvas, 
like an El Greco saint in glory, when he turns Lady Southdown 
out of her predominant position in the menage. There is no 
one in Vanity Fair so antipathetic to me as Arthur Pen- 
dennis. I suppose we are all very like him — by " we " I mean 
young men in general, but he is a very cleverly written warning 
— Fabula de te narratur. 

I've been wounded lightly, and am now going back via 
Alexandria, which is our base. I was only three days on 
shore and about two hours or so under real fire. My love to 
the Vice-Provost and other Eton friends (especially Miss Mar- 
garet and Cecilia). What a period of sadness but glory it must 
be for all you who have watched Eton's life year in, year out. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

On Board Ship. 
{Extract, undated?) 
I have been reading some George Meredith. " Beauchamp's 
Career " I have always admired from a distance rather. But I 
must say his touch when he talks of love is so deep and subtle, 

191 



Charles Lister 

so elusive and yet so true, that one lingers over the chapters and 
puzzles out each word. Not that it is so difficult, but the great- 
ness of it all makes me always think I am missing something. 
I don't think the book is very readable apart from the love 
interest. Beauchamp as a politician is sympathetic but not 
interesting. However, the whole portrayal is that of a hero, 
and that end is most moving when he dies to save a little 
mudlark of a child, chetif and half idiotic. " This is all we have 
in exchange for Beauchamp." Read Lord Cromer's account 
of the ex-Khedive. It is massive, terse, and manly, and puts 
Lord Rosebery in quite a new light as Foreign Secretary. I 
always thought he was a bad one. But Lord Cromer says he 
practically settled our position in Egypt between 1892 and 
1894 — periods of constant friction with the Khedive. 

We take up the history of the Naval Brigade in the following letters 
after the battle of June 4th, in conjunction with the operations of our forces 
by sea, in which the Hood and Anson Battalions suffered severely. The 
Hood Battalion took a Turkish trench and bayoneted the Turks, but 
came immediately under fire from another trench, and they lost heavily. 
Colonel Quilter was succeeded by Colonel Stewart. Commander Freyberg 
as second-in-command. Charles was company-commander, with three 
subordinate officers. 

The unit of the Naval Brigade and its battalions, the Hood and the 
Anson, had to be brought up to strength with new officers, new N.C.O.'s, 
and new men. After the battle of June 4th, the Hood Battalion was out 
of the firing-line. They were detailed for beach work, and, still under- 
officered, were employed in digging saps, beach fatigue work, sniping, 
and even unloading lighters and guarding G.O.C.'s. Commander Freyberg, 
who was seriously wounded in July, was now in command. Charles was 
in his company from the start and in all the advances under him. — R. 



To Lora Ribblesdale. 

CUNARD S.S. "ANDANIA," 

June 12, 1915. 
I am now recovered and en route for Alexandria, with details 
of the R.N.D. to rejoin. We have about forty-two Naval folk 
and twenty-nine Marines, nearly all wounded and now better. 
.192 



Dardanelles Expedition 

I am very happy at the prospect, and quite as if I was going 
out for the first time. 

I am still in the thrall of Thackeray, delighting in Vanity 
Fair ; the Waterloo chapters read so living nowadays. But the 
pageantry and brightness of Brussels a week before the fighting 
must contrast rather with the businesslike look of Boulogne 
and its pathos. Mrs. Crawley did not don the nurse's uniform, 
which so well becomes M. and Lady . Alexandria is prob- 
ably more like the Thackeray Brussels. I shall never forget 
the change from our dowdy old steamer to the Alexandria 

racecourse. Le tout Londres and Lord at dinner. This 

nobleman, from a safe seat in the club at Alexandria, said that 

he heard the Naval Division always ran away ; I hope he 

will revise this opinion. Certainly quite a number have not 
run away with sufficient expeditiousness to avoid the Turkish 
bullets. Our battalion now numbers about sixty men with 
four officers or so. Pat, I think, still well, though rumours 
are rather conflicting. However, most of us are in my case. 
Did you see our Brigade (2nd Naval) got specially thanked by 
General d'Amade, under whom we worked for several days? I 
hope we shall have silenced at any rate some of the criticisms 
and sniggers which have been our lot since Antwerp. I heard 
a bad account of Denis Browne. I saw quite a number of our 
boys hit in the June 4th fight. Their spirit was fine. My 
platoon has suffered very much, but has done very well. We 
were invited to "celebrate" June 4th at Malta, but I didn't, 
as I was not for organized guzzles at a time when better fellows 
were celebrating it in a very different way. 

Several Italians have been through from Constantinople, and 
they say that there are eighty thousand Turkish wounded there, 
that the Turks can only continue the war for a month. I 
think we have got them, shall wear them down, even if we make 
no advance. I wish I hadn't missed all this fighting, and that 
I had seen more of the battalion after it had really got into its 
stride. That first morning was futile, and we had such a foolish 
role to play. We did it as well as could have been done, but 
it wasn't the real thing. The division is now being worked as 

193 



Charles Lister 

a division, and is no longer scattered. We have now one fine 
staff-officer who will pull us through. This ship has a Territorial 
battalion on board, and various other odds and ends, such as 
A.S.C. and doctors. I am the only officer who has been any- 
where near the foe, and am asked for tips by staid old Colonels 

(formerly family solicitors like F R I expect) and 

blushing Staff captains. I have made many inaccurate and 
conflicting statements. My attitude to the Territorials is trh 
digne. I call my details to " attention " once a morning as the 
Territorial Colonel passes, but not a second time. I give my 
boys no work. We have lectures, and were informed last night 
by one of the medical officers that the female fly takes only ten 
days to attain to sexual maturity — a creditable performance. 



To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 
s.s. "Andania," 

June 12, 1915. 

Many thanks for your last, which was very welcome. I am 
waiting at Alexandria to get a ship back to the front. Our 
orders are so slow coming through, and we have to wait so 
much for other people. ... I have seen several other of our 
officers and heard the gup. The day I was hit the Brigadier 
of the brigade on the left of us came up to our Colonel and 
told him he thought our advance one of the bravest things. 
Then when we were with d'Amade we got a most handsome 
letter from him on our services, which appeared in all the 
French papers. On the June 4th fight our brigade was put 
up against a very stiff job and got heavily punished, but at 
one time was holding a whole brigade-front with three 
hundred and twenty men. We have about one hundred and 
fifty men left out of the battalion and five officers, including 
those returned after being wounded. My company-commander 
has got the D.S.O. We have lost two Colonels — Quilter killed 
and his successor, Stewart, hit in the jaw. We have altogether 



Dardanelles Expedition 

not done badly. I saw a number of my platoon at Malta 
wounded after June 4th, and they looked so jolly and bronzed 
in spite of their wounds. I am happy to get back. If we 
simply sit tight in our present position the crac is bound 
to come. 

Will you send me Julian's poem published in The Times. I 
can't give you the date. The Egyptian papers quote it. Julian 
is an appalling loss to me. He was the most perfect of friends 
and heartening of examples, but I am relieved that E. Horner 
will be all right. I wish I knew more about Rex. Benson. 
News is so fitful here. 



To the Hon. Lady Wilson. 

Alexandria, 
June 18, 1915. 

I have been here now for about a week, and am sorry to say 
have been unable to see Scats J who has been in hospital at Port 
Said. . . . Our base commandant is apt to send one off at a 
moment's notice, and Port Said is too long a journey to risk. 
Alexandria has been pleasant enough, with lots of old friends 
about and lots of our officers. Did you know a charming man 
called Major Bell, who was in Somaliland, and knew Tommy 
well ? He is now a Sharpshooter. The Sharps and ourselves 

are still at Ismailia. The H.A.C. battery of Major got off 

one of his guns at the Turks — or rather at about one Turk — 
but the rest of Taylor's brigade have done nothing. 

The Hood Battalion was finished on June 4th ; we took a 
Turkish trench filled with Turks, whom we bayoneted. It was, 
however, under fire from another Turkish trench about fifty 
yards higher up, from which the Turks could throw hand 
grenades, etc., and we lost heavily, and did not get supports 
enough to go on. Out of nine officers who went with the 
charge, six were killed and three wounded. We now 

1 Sir Mathew Wilson, late 10th Hussars, then commanding the Second 
Division at Ismailia. — R. 

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Charles Lister 

number about one hundred and fifty men all told, I think. 
I think the battalion has done well. It has certainly earned 
a lot of official praise. Our new Colonel, Stewart, who was hit 
on the 4th, came back on the same ship as Scats, when he came 
back from India to marry you. Our Commodore and all the 
officers commanding battalions of our brigade are going to get 
Legions d'Honneur. 

I like the poem of Julian's which they put into The Times — a 
real swan-song. And how very sad about Bill Tennant. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

June 23 or 28, 1915. 

Just one line to say I am returning to duty now. They kept 
me waiting about a week in Alexandria, then put me on to the 
wrong boat, then kept me waiting ten days for the right boat ; 
so you see they are not in a frantic hurry for the wounded to 
return. I shan't find my battalion much in the swing of it yet 
awhile ; we are, I fancy, too reduced, and now getting ourselves 
together again under our ex-Second-in-Command. 1 

Stewart, by the way, who took Quilter's place, may be coming 
to see you. He is a charming fellow and a fine officer, and, 
while he will have little to tell you about me, he will be able to 
yarn to you about les fails et gestes of the 2nd Brigade and the 
battalion in general. The battalion, I fear, is a mixed lot now, 
filled up with odds and ends from new formations, etc. I saw 
Harry at Port Said, which was nice ; he was there for a sore 
throat which they feared at one time was diphtheria. He was 
not looking famous, and rather fed up with canal guarding. 
Ismailia, however, is a very fine place from all accounts, bathing 
and good club. Am now back with battalion in rest camp. 
Big battle in progress, but we're out of it. 

1 Colonel Frcyberg. 

ip6 



Dardanelles Expedition 

To the Hon. Lady Wilson. 

June 2%th. 

. . . On this ship we are in a state of acute discomfort. 
Some forty-five officers in fifteen cabins — and a coal black ship. 
. . . But I have been very lucky so far, and one mustn't expect 
Cunarders all the time. . . . We have a subaltern on board 
who is in a corps of Palestine Muleteers, nearly all Russian 
Jews, who ran away from Jerusalem at the beginning of the 
war to Egypt, and enlisted, and have been made into a 
transport unit. They have to be spoken to in Arabic and 
Yiddish-German. They are now going to the Dardanelles. 
We are having a jolly journey through islands, which we 
expect to complete to-morrow. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, M.E.F., 

July i, 1915. 

I find everything very peaceful on my return x — a new 
battalion brought again up to near its proper strength by 
accessions from other battalions, a line of trenches very 
solidly made reaching well up towards our goal, and well 
provided with drinking-water brought by pipes right into the 
firing-line, and an intermittent appearance of ships. It was 
tragic, the first arrival at dawn, to see nothing of the great fleet 
of men-of-war and transports that once was there, but the 
keel of the Majestic sticking out about four feet and lit by a 
solitary light, similar to the oil lamps put on the graves of 
the San Lorenzo cemetery on All Souls' night at Rome ; but 
the beaches are busy with life and but little troubled with shell 
fire. The mischief is done by an elusive old lady on the Asiatic 

1 Charles, after a tedious journey, now had about a fortnight in a rest 
camp. Two new battalions had been broken up to bring the Hood and 
the Anson up to strength, and the vexed subjects of brigade organization, 
always accompanied by some friction, are described. — R. 

197 



Charles Lister 

side nicknamed Annie. We can't discover her, as she moves 
on trollies. She sometimes drops a shell into our camp. 

We haven't been in the trenches since June 4th, but will 
go soon. They are very safe and never shelled. The plan 
we follow now is to pound away at one little bit of the line 
and attack that. It answers better than general attacks all 
along the line, and the general tone is very optimistic and 
the Turkish shortage of shells very manifest. I am now a 
second-in-command of a company under a real type, Chalmers 
by name, whom I'm very fond of, but this will not last for 
long, when more of our wounded return. I am the baby of 
the " Hood." We have been subjected to pie-jaws on the 
subject of brigade reorganization, which has been necessary 
in our case and accompanied by some friction, as it involved 
the break up of two young battalions to make us up to strength. 
. . . Soldiers, of course, have much practice in stump oratory, 
as the most junior platoon officer is supposed to lecture his 
men. I have studiously avoided doing so. I love our rest- 
camp life except for the dust storms. Soldiering is a grand 
life, and I never thought I'd like it so much. 

I must now censor men's letters. 



To the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham. 

Hood Battalion, 

July 1, 1915. 

I have got two delightful letters from you, darling, one 
describing your being shelled at Dunkerque and the other 
from Lilfeild telling me about the charge of the Essex. What 
a magnificent performance. 

I have found the battalion in a rest camp — some miles from 
the firing-line — living comfortably enough and sleeping in 
pyjamas, except when we are standing by, which is rather our 
usual condition, especially if an attack is in contemplation. 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

I have been in fine health since landing, except for slight wal- 
de-mer caused by an excess of rum last night. I look forward 
to the rum nights with all the zeal of an old sea-dog. It is a 
glorious liquor. 

We have really got on well since I left, and while there may 
have been unnecessary losses, there is no ground for pessimism. 
The French are fighting splendidly, especially when they are on 
their own, and their bombardment of trenches is a masterpiece 
— marvellous rapidity of fire and accuracy. We are well round 
the Turkish flank on the Krithia side, thanks to a fine attack by 
the 29th Division, who have done marvels. It was well pre- 
pared for by artillery, and there were practically no Turks in the 
trenches, bar wounded and dead, when the men came up. If 
only the same had been done when we attacked on June 4th. 

I went up into the fire trenches yesterday, and they gave me 
a great feeling of confidence. The Engineers are getting water 
right up to the firing-line by means of pipes. The trenches are 
for the most part bone dry, but they haven't always been so. 
Patrick is in great form. I, of course, did not see any of his 
activities in the field, but all say he is an excellent officer, very 
cool-headed and active. I am glad he gives me a bonne presse. 



To the Hon. Lady Wilson. 

Hood Battalion. 

(No date.) 

We each of us have our dug-outs, which are about two feet 
or so down from the surface. They would be a protection 
against shrapnel, but of little use against high explosive, which 
is what we are visited with from time to time. Luckily the 
Turks are very short of shells and so do very little " hating." 

There is a gun called Annie on the Asiatic side which gives 
us now and then five or six about tea-time. I am told it 
was much worse last week. One unfortunate hero, who had 
been hit in the hand, came back and was hit in the ankle his 

199 



Charles Lister 

first day de retour while lying in his dug-out. So his time 
in the Peninsula has been short. 

It is a great difference from when I was last here, considering 
we are fighting a trench-war, like in France. We have pushed 
our line up very well, and made our position very solid. The 
co-ordination of the various units' activities is far more efficient, 
and in my view we have the situation well in hand. 

Our friends are all flourishing. Oc. 1 very fit after his bullet, 
and Patrick looking a holy man in his bright red beard, which 
might have been dyed with henna. He has done so well, and 
is gat comme un pinson. 



To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Hood Battalion, M.E.F., 

July i, 1915. 

. . . Gallipoli has lost much of its charm of scenery since 
I got back. The place where we are camped has been changed 
from a smiling olive grove to a dust-heap. But everything is 
much better organized — splendid trenches, heaps of delicious 
water, and easy walking. The whole force is in great heart, 
and progress, if slow, has been considerable. The French 
artillery has quite found its length, has any amount of shells, 
and is doing magnificently. The new French General [Gouraud] 
is a great success and some thruster. Duststorms are our only 
grievance. We get very fond of our rum ration. 

My brigade has not been in the trenches for some time, but 
is now fit for work again. We wanted a good deal of re-or- 
ganization, but at this moment we are pretty strong. The only 
real discomfort I have had so far in this war was my passage 
from Alexandria to this place on a vile ship, where we were 
packed three officers per cabin, and which took about a week to 
do a forty-eight hours' run — what with dawdles and muddles. 

1 A. Asquith. 



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Dardanelles Expedition 

To the Hon. Mrs. Wyndham. 

Hood Battalion, 

July 5, 1915. 

Many thanks for three letters which I got all at once. I 
fear Julian was destined for a higher fate than hanging about 
Hazebruck. 

Rest-camp life I really find pleasant enough, and my dug-out 
is now fairly well organized, though I had two wet nights, 
owing to holes in my waterproof sheets which treacherously 
let the water-pool there find its way to the apertures and pour 
down on my devoted head. Shells come down from time to 
time. Yesterday three burst on our lines without doing any 
damage, bar riddling poor Patrick's best khaki tunic (luckily 
he was not in it, but it was hanging on a tree) and covering 
his sleeping-bag with soot. One fell in the lines next to us, 
killing two and wounding ten men. So it is purely a matter 
of chance. 

I have had one or two amusing working parties. One of 
digging saps right up about sixty yards behind our firing- 
line and a hundred and sixty from the Turks' firing-line. 
It was at night, so I saw nothing but the usual fireworks 
and flares and rifle flashes, but very much doing. I went up 
yesterday to see where we had been working, and had a most 
interesting new and close, but perfectly safe position. I did 
some sniping at a Turkish loophole and had two shots hitting 
the iron round the loophole quite neatly. The men love 
sniping, but I think it is a safe enough pastime both for our- 
selves and the enemy, as the trenches are very solid. 

I fear I shall not do many more joy-rides for a little time, 
as we are on beach fatigue for about ten days or more. I 
am rather annoyed at it, but the general view seems that we 
ought to wait a bit longer. I have for the moment got a 
company. But this won't last long, as other wounded will 
be returning. I sleep in pyjamas now, as we are no longer 
standing by — so life is practically picnicking with little inter- 

291 



Charles Lister 

ludes of shell fire. I am getting a good judge of where a 
shell is likely to burst, as I expect you were also after your 
Dunkerque trials. 



To the Hon. Lady Wilson. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

July 5, 1915. 

Many thanks for your letter reporting on the last phases 
of Middlesex history at Mundesley. 

My life since my return has been very peaceful, and I don't 
think there is any chance of our doing anything for some time, 
as we are detailed for beach work till further orders. We are 
still rather uncoalesced and we haven't a great number of officers. 
This is illustrated by the fact that I am pro tern, commanding 
a company, and for troops like us one really wants rather a 
full complement of officers. Our camp is really very pleasant, 
and the shade of the olive-trees and the breeze neutralize the 
fly and dust nuisance. At night our camp looks lovely with 
the little lights in the dug-out shining through the sacking and 
waterproof sheets and the olive-trees in relief against the night 
sky and silvery in the moonlight. The darkness, moreover, 
hides the grassless state of our lines. We had shells in yester- 
day — four into our lines which did no damage, But shelling 
is so much a matter of chance. The beaches are the most 
extraordinary places, full of dug-outs, etc., and just like London, 
for no one knows who his next-door neighbour is, and to find 
any one is practically an impossibility. 

The Beach take themselves very seriously, and one would 
think that no one else on the Peninsula is in any danger 
whatever. 

The Turks have pushed up a fresh army corps from 
the other side of Constantinople, who arrived here very 
exhausted after fifteen days' forced marches. They were at 
once pushed up into an attack, at which they made a very 
poor show, losing about three hundred men yesterday, and 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

not pressing home an attack which might have rather shaken 
us. The Brigadier commanding in the trenches was suffering 
from the prevailing Peninsular complaint when he heard this 
attack was going forward, but acted with great decision. 
Picnicking and shell fire is not half a bad fire life, and I 
am very well and happy, though disappointed we are doing 
so little. K.'s fears about the ineptitude of shelling weeks 
before we have the troops for landing ready, and the fallacy 
that the R.N.D. and the French would suffice have been more 
than justified. 

To Lord Ribblesdale, 

Hood Battalion, 

July 6, 1915. 

Life continues to be peaceful and picknicky, and I have for 
the first time, fired a rifle in anger. This was in the course 
of a joy-ride to some advance trenches of ours, where we are 
within a hundred yards or so of the Turks. I fired two shots 
at a Turkish loop-hole and hit the iron immediately round 
the aperture. Sniping must be very good fun. The men 
in the trenches seemed most cheerful and pretty comfort- 
able, though they don't get too much sleep, as heat and flies 
stop their getting it by day and rifle-fire and watches stop 
them at night. 

I am rather annoyed at this continual state of inactivity, as 
we can't really get to know our men or train them if we are 
always doing fatigues and living under the eye of the Turkish 
gunners. Our new men want a lot of shaking down. We have 
not enough officers, moreover, and this is a bad thing in the 
case of 2nd home troops, which is what we are now. 

F. Robinson is on the Peninsula now — at least, I suppose 
he is, but I have not had time to get at the Lancashire lines, 
and only been able to visit our lines rather occasionally. 

Some offence has been caused by our new Eye-witness — 
— a writer without an equal in describing Pimlico — likening 
the famous West Beach to Blackpool. Its inhabitants take 

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Charles Lister 

the shells rather seriously and would resent this flippancy. 
The dug-outs on the beach are masterpieces of the sand-bag 
style, and very cool and safe. The very latrines are like the 
houses of the great. 



To Mrs. Graham Smith. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., B.M.E.F., 

July 6, 1915. 

I have just got two charming letters from you which gave me 
great pleasure. I am delighted to hear you are walking again. 
I expect you could do all the walking that is wanted on this 
Peninsula. Trench warfare has debased and made dull a 
noble science, and any one with a leg to stand on and a fairly 
sound stomach is fit for it. I went from Malta to Alexandria, 
where I was about a week before they found me a ship to 
take me on here, and from Alexandria it was about a nine days' 
journey. First we were taken down to a ship, about a thousand 
of us, which could accommodate three hundred. Then we were 
made to wait about three days till our new ship was ready to 
start. Then at Lemnos no one knew anything about us, so 
they had to improvise arrangements for us, which led to another 
three days' wait. No easy matter getting back to the front. 

Our return to the Peninsula from Lemnos was a strange 
experience. When we first anchored off Cape Helles in May 
there was a huge collection of ships of all kinds, all lit up 
making an effect like Brighton Pier illuminated. At present 
all there is to be seen are a couple of hospital ships, a few 
destroyers, and a green shape protruding from the water, the 
keel of the Majestic. 

On land, however, the difference is tremendous. Considering 
how early operations developed into trench warfare, we have 
gained a lot of ground, and places which we thought reasonably 
near the firing-line earlier on are now rest camps. Our brigade 
has done nothing since June 4th, when it was very badly cut up, 
and we are likely to be on working parties for some time. The 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

Turks occasionally shell us in this camp, and they are very 
assiduous in their attentions to the beach ; but they do not do 
much damage, and the absence of the ships' guns to keep down 
their fire has not made so much difference as I expected. I 
suppose this is due to the fact that the Turks are short of 
shells. Our dinner was spoilt, as the dexy with the soup in it 
was riddled. So were two khaki tunics of Patrick's, luckily 
hanging on a tree and not on his manly form. These sort 
of things make us feel we are at war. The bathing here is 
very pleasant, though care has to be exercised in avoiding 
dead horses. Once out of their reach the water is deliciously 
cool and clear. 

The Turks behave well to the wounded, give them first aid 
and sometimes return them to our own people after dressing 
them. Oc. has been made lieutenant commander (same as a 
Major) and has got his company, a meteoric rise. 



To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Hood Battalion, 
July 7, 1915. 

It is delightful, having the Inferno by one again, as the 
most hard-hitting, poignant cantos are to be found there : they 
are in a sense more universal than the mystic ecstasy and 
transcendentalism of the Paradiso, to which one must be to 
some extent attuned and have steeped oneself in the spirit and 
spiritual theory of the Middle Ages. I think the finest thing 
in the whole Divine Comedy is the twenty-sixth canto of the 
Inferno, where Odysseus tells Dante of his last voyage and the 
wreck of his ship on the Mount of Purgatory. 

We expect to go up to trenches very shortly, but I fancy we 
shall at first only be in support. The change since I was last 
here is enormous. We really have got on — have consolidated 
our portion in a remarkable manner. The trenches are 
splendid, and for the most part bone dry. The rest camp where 
we have our dug-outs is pretty quiet, though occasionally 

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Charles Lister 

shelled- It would be untenable if the Turks had enough 
ammunition on the Asiatic side. I write under the shade of an 
olive-tree, reasonably cool, as there is generally a south wind 
blowing, but rather fed up with the dust. There are also lots of 
flies. But there is no real discomfort, and deliciously cool water. 
Patrick, who is practically the oldest inhabitant, never having 
been wounded, has grown a glorious red beard of the colour of 
henna. He is a thundering good officer and has quite a 
reputation. Since our last " push," on June 28th or so, we 
have marked time and the Turks have obligingly attacked us. 
They are supposed to have lost practically a whole division 
since that date. Gourand (O.C. French troops) will be a great 
loss. He was blown by a shell over a wall and broke both his 
legs in falling. He had got the French well together — and was 
a real Cceur de Lion. 



To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

July 8, 1915. 

Many thanks for two letters which I have just got, and 
for the cutting from The Times giving Julian's poem. It is 
a beautiful poem, and I like to think how fond he was of 
all his days of war. I saw it in Alexandria, but should like 
one to keep. I so liked the verse about the horses. It is 
very true of them here. They hardly turn their heads when 
the shells come, even if they burst quite near. They have 
not had such a bad time or lost any great numbers since 
I've been back. I've not seen one actually hit and maimed, 
though shells burst everywhere round them. They have 
made dug-outs for them behind walls, with mud partitions 
between — no overhead covers ; and the battery horses all 
look fit, though on the fat side, as might be expected in 
this trench warfare, where they have relatively little distance 
to move. They seem a good stamp of horse. I have heard 
of one or two chargers having been killed, and am on the 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

whole not sorry that Reynolds x is in Egypt, where he has 
a good master and is looking very well. 

Lygrove sounds a charming place, if we any of us ever 
have money to hunt or own horses again. The return to 
settled life is very difficult to conceive at present. 

There are many rumours as to the future of the R.N.D., 
occasioned, I suppose, by the temporary removal from our 
section. This has never happened before, as there have never 
before been enough troops to admit of it. But in France 
I understand there are frequent choppings and changings. 



To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Hood Battalion, M.E.F., 

July 12, 1915. 

I have several charming letters to thank you for, which 
have in due time dribbled in. I am looking forward enor- 
mously to reading your collection of Granny's letters. All the 
time I have been back the battalion has been inactive, either 
in camp or digging trenches, unloading lighters, guarding 
G.O.C.'s, and other humble occupations, and I fancy we should 
all like a change. The working parties tire the men and in- 
terrupt their night's rest, and the long time in camp gives 
them time to think of the food they are getting, etc., and 
leads them into grousing. If men have plenty of real work 
they haven't time to grouse. However, things are settling 
down pretty well. ... It is distressing to look on the havoc 
modern warfare, with its trenches and dug-outs, makes with 
the kindly earth. I doubt when the soil here will recover 
its old look and these gaping wounds be healed. Also all 
the grass is trodden in and there is very little green. In 
the lines a little vineyard has been spared from the ravages 

* A very good bay horse of mine which went to Egypt with Sir M. 
Wilson. He won the jumping prize, beating a class of 87, at the Cairo 
Horse Show, 1916. 

207 



Charles Lister 

of the spade and looks like a bright little emerald in the 
midst of the dirt and dilapidation. 

Oc. Asquith and I went up into the French trenches one 
day. The trenches are built all round a great Turkish 
fort which they destroyed with shell fire and then stormed. 
They call it the Haricot. The Senegalais were in much 
evidence ; they are marvellous sleepers, and do not mind the 
flies crawling all over their faces. Our men can't get sleep 
in the daytime in the trenches because of the sun and the 
flies. 

The French officers were extraordinarily nice and wel- 
coming. They looked perfectly spick and span and were 
beautifully shaved. Our people don't keep nearly so tidy. 
They adore the 75 like a sort of goddess, and the French 
75 may indeed become the new centre of French worship, 
now that they have got rid of God. They have had most 
difficult ground to get over. 

We have had one night in the trenches since I've been 
back, well behind. We were shelled on the way home. My 
stick was hit by a spent piece of high explosive which had 
burst about two hundred yards away. It was of course abso- 
lutely done. They drop a few shells into our camp now and 
then, but they have not a sufficiency of ammunition to make 
themselves really disagreeable. We, I am told, will soon 
have plenty of shell both here and in France. This morning 
there was the very devil of a bombardment from about 4 a.m. 
onwards, and I think a considerable advance has been made 
both near Krithia and on the right of our line. 

The situation is well in hand. Whenever we concentrate 
gun fire on a little bit of the Turkish line and then push 
men up, we advance. We have a lot of troops coming out, 
and we have now contrivances by which our ships can anchor 
and shell the shore without fear of submarines. One of these 
last has been lately caught by nets. I think we shall be 
through with this job here by the end of September, if not 
before. 



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Dardanelles Expedition 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 
July 1 8, 19 1 5. 

We are now in the trenches. We went in about three 
days ago. They are old Turkish trenches, with one or 
two admirably protected dug-outs, which we suspect the 
Turks have been made to hollow out for the German 
officers. It is fairly whiffy, and there are quite a number of 
dead in the neighbourhood, and the tell-tale stocking or end 
of boot is now and then seen protruding from the trench 
wall. We get our share of sniping, even in the support 
trench, which I have seen most of. One has to drop 
nimbly past certain critical corners. But there is no need 
for any one to get hit if they keep down. The Turks are 
sniping from a long way off and fire on the chance. The 
communication trenches are rather ticklish by day, though 
safe enough by night. There are occasional dead bodies 
where people have been killed, and it is an awful job getting 
our men past them : they have a sort of supernatural fear 
of trampling on their own dead ; this kind of feeling of awe 
is felt also by the men in the case of the Turkish dead. 

We get all we want to eat. The Eastern tea and biscuits 
and jam are excellent, but for a jam variety known as the 
Sir X. Y. brand, with a picture of the inventor on the label. 
He is a characteristic Millbank type, with the urbane glance 
of the sweating mill-owner of the 'forties. He gives us away, 
because the French used to give us wine in exchange for jam, 
but are now tired of doing so, as they always get this sample 
foisted upon them. What a good example of Gresham's Law. 

Trench life means a good deal of repose but very little sleep. 
This is not so much due to the enemy as to the torrents of 
raw levies coming up to do working parties or to relieve pals or 
to look for their proper places in the line, and so on. I have had 
my toes trodden on by every officer and man of a Scotch 
Territorial Division. They come up in driblets, carrying the 

P 209 



Charles Lister 

most weird cooking utensils, and with every sort of impedi- 
mentum. They never know how many of them are coming, and 
if you ask them each man says he is the last. Then after about 
ten seconds' interval fresh men come up, carrying what appear 
to be portions of bagpipes. They are always getting lost and 
held up. Last night I had to get them out by dint of jumping 
on the top of the communication trench parapet and kicking 
dust on to their heads, and at the time using the most violent 
language. The humours of trench warfare are really delicious. 
Our men are in fine fettle and have worked awfully well, taking 
things up to the firing-line with hardly any rest. 

Patrick keeps a most lucid grasp of affairs, even with the 
Scots standing on our toes, when the trench is a seething mass 
of humanity. I had no idea the difficulty of getting men in or 
out of the trenches would be so great. The trenches are bone 
dry just now, rather hot and dusty, but there is always a breeze. 
I am very well and happy. The trench soil is limestone and 
chalk, rather white and trying to the eyes. 



To the Same. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F. 

July 22, 1915. 

We have now done with our time in the trenches and emerged 
from four days' very hard work with great credit. This is due 
to our acting CO. Freyberg, who will come and see you when 
we get home. 

Our digging operations, carried out at night within about 
two hundred yards of the enemy's trenches and under a certain 
amount of rifle fire, have not only made our own position quite 
secure but rendered untenable for the Turks a small portion of 
our sector which they still held in between our extreme right and 
our right centre. They have also given us a point of vantage 
from which we can enfilade Turks retiring before the French 
on our extreme right. Oc. has been extraordinarily dogged, 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

and is practically responsible for all this corner, which will be 
known as Asquith triangle. He hadn't a wink of sleep all the 
four days, and Patrick and Kelly also distinguished themselves, 
and in one night dug a long trench connecting Asquith triangle 
with our main support. Six men of this company were killed 
and wounded, and I think the company of another battalion 
working with them lost about as many. Patrick and Kelly 
remained above ground the whole time, and it is a wonder they 
were not hit. Their petty officer who was doing the same got 
killed. This trench will be called Shaw-Stewart Street. 

Our last two days my company joined Oc. in the fire trench. 
The fire trench is heavily sniped, and before I had been in two 
minutes I got a bullet through my helmet, which was a salutary 
warning and made me keep my head well down. My company 
was chiefly occupied in operations against a little advanced post 
the Turks had pushed up against our lines like this". There 
was a sandbag barrier separating us from the Turks. One night 
we took this barrier down and pushed it about ten yards up 
the Turkish communication trench. As things were before, 
the Turks could have come up quietly and dropped bombs 
into us. 

The next day we were more ambitious. The artillery — an 
Australian battery and the French — shelled the advanced 
Turkish post for about twenty minutes while we massed, with 
a covering party of men with bombs and bayonets and a main 
body of men with sandbags, in the trench, ready to rush out up 
the old communication trench and push our sandbag barrier 
still farther forward. It was not feasible to take the Turkish 
advance post, as it could not be held in face of Turkish guns on 
the hill slope opposite. Our shelling was magnificent. We 
realized the importance of rushing in immediately our shelling 
ceased. But as it turned out we were rather too close, for a 
shell fell among our people and buried six of them, who were 
however, dug out unhurt or only slightly wounded. The shell 
luckily did not burst. This was followed by a Turkish shell 
which fell right in the middle of us as we were all crouching for 
the rush, hit Freyberg in the stomach, killed another man, and 

211 



Charles Lister 

covered me with small scratches, which bled profusely at the 
moment. We had by now got our original barrier, so I got our 
covering party out and rushed them up the trench over quite a 
number of dead Turks, while my company commander, a 
grand fellow called Egerton, most valuable organizer, did the 
same with sandbags. We stopped our men just short of the 
Turkish advanced post : threw bombs in which did not light 
and would not burst, and at once started the new barrier ; not a 
Turk in sight. The snipers, however, soon came back and 
made work at this point difficult, so we moved back and con- 
tented ourselves with a gain of about forty to fifty yards on our 
old position. The men, once they had recovered from the 
shaking they had got from these two shells, behaved very 
gallantly. We had only one man killed, and the East Lanes 
(Kitchener's Army), our neighbours, who helped us very 
cordially, lost their company commander ; sniped because he 
put his head up. 

Our Commodore, General Paris, and General Hunter- Weston 
are all delighted with us. The latter now feels quite easy about 
his line. 

The serious thing is Freyberg. He was sure to get the 
battalion and is such a splendid soldier. He got a D.S.O., you 
know, for swimming ashore at the Gulf of Xeros and lighting 
flares. I told him to look you up when he comes home. A 
stomach wound is always dangerous, but I think his chances 
of getting over it are good. He has been awfully good 
to me. 

I have been hit in about six places, but all tiny little scratches, 
so they will send me to Imbros for a fortnight or so. It is a 
delicious place. Buy me a wedding present for Violet — I 
should suggest Storia di Mogor, a translation from the 
Italian of the Memoirs of Minucci, a Venetian who was a 
doctor at the Court of Aurungzeeb. 

I have had no pain, only slight discomfort, in this clearing 
station on West Beach, where one can get nothing — not even a 
second cup of tea. 



£12 



Dardanelles Expedition 

To the Hon. Beatrix Lister. 

Hood Battalion, 

July 24, 1915. 

My injuries are very slight and do not even want dressing 
now, and the operation was a great success, as we got our 
barrier at least forty to fifty yards farther on and have quite 
secured our trenches from the danger of being bombed by 
the Turks. The position was like this, and we advanced our 
barriers from point X to Y. When I went out there were no 
Turks about : the artillery had scattered them to the four winds ; 
but they soon came back, and we had only just time to get our 
sandbags up. Our days in the trenches were very hard work, 
what with garrison duty, getting water and ammunition up 
to the firing-line and improving our fire trenches themselves, 
and we hardly closed our eyes all the time. It is hard to sleep 
in the daytime owing to the flies. But it was never very hot, 
and we always had heaps to eat and drink. I have never, 
however, been so conscious of the uses of a water-bottle. 

The battalion worked awfully hard and emerged with great 
credit in the highest quarters — all our friends, Oc, Patrick, 
and so on, are the most excellent officers. 

I am in the hospital at Imbros, a most delightful island, 
full of lichen-covered grey rocks, trees, and orchards — every sort 
of delicious fruit — and a glorious blue sea. It is much cooler 
even down here near the beach than the Peninsula, and a 
real land of plenty. The hospital people are most kind and 
put themselves out in every way. I get Guinness's stout for 
dinner. 

I am reading d'Annunzio's Trio?ifo delta Morte — apart 
from his luscious and eloquent treatment of the passion he 
is supreme at describing the drear life of the provincial noblesse 
of Italy and its underlying dramas of squalor and pathos. He 
is tedious when he goes too deeply into the morbid psychology 
of his heroes. 



213 



Charles Lister 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

August i, 1915. 

I am afraid you will have thought it very odd my not 
wiring about being wounded, etc., but it was quite impossible, 
as the authorities would allow no private wires to go through. 
The wires are retained for official messages only. 

My wounds were very slight — mere scratches. So now I am 
back to duty again. We are still in our old rest camp, acting as 
Army Corps Reserve, and likely to be used in the coming 
fighting, but not as first line of attack, which will be undertaken 
by new troops. The division was told they would be taken off 
the Peninsula at the end of the month, but it has now been 
decided that not a man can leave, so I suppose there will 
be something doing. 

We get fish for our breakfast, as we have an enterprising 
officer who goes and bombs them, then dives and picks them 
off the bottom. 

As to my convalescence, I was first of all in hospital at 
the clearing station on the beach, where I wrote to you. It 
is a vile place. The men only get bread and cheese, and 
officers can't get a second cup of tea or sugar with their 
bread and milk. I then went over to Imbros with a sort of 
"world's fair" boat, with Sikhs and Turkish prisoners. The 
Turks told me all the Germans had left the Peninsula, and that 
they were fighting alone now — this is true of the higher 
command, but not of the machine-gun section. They praise 
the Heir Apparent, who when he went round the wounded 
said to them, " Inshallah, you will go home when you are 
well." Enver said to them, " Inshallah, you will go back to the 
war when you are well." 

George Brodrick took me to lunch while I was at Imbros, 
and Sir Ian was most kind and affectionate in his inquiries 
after you and the rest of the family. He lives very simply, 
though well. We had excellent fish and potatoes and stewed 
plums. I should be rather more luxurious if I were G.O.C.- 
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Dardanelles Expedition 

in-C. Sir Ian chatted pleasantly on the demoralized state 
of the Turks and on Egyptian antiquities, notably a cat- 
goddess with a lovely young woman's body he saw at Luxor — 
his recollections in our present conditions of monkery filled 
all with anguish. 

The hospital at Imbros was rather congested with pale- 
faced officers whose tummies had been upset by the suns of 
the Levant. So I got into the interior as soon as possible, 
and went up to a charming village called Panaghia, where I 
stayed with the resident British. I gorged on fresh vegetables 
excellently cooked by a handy Greek. I used to go jolly 
rides all over the island on pack-ponies, brushing through 
masses of Persian lilac and oleander on either side of my 
stony path. I went to one or two little monastery churches, 
kept tidy by one or two old monks who do damn all, and 
once a year give the country-side a "jolly" out of the endow- 
ments of these little churches, and I did one famous climb to a 
shrine of the rather controversial St. Athanasius. The highest 
hill in the island is crowned by a little shrine of St. Elias, 
built of shell and red tiles. St. Elias for some reason is the 
great saint of thunderstorms, and I suppose connected with 
the old Aryan sky-god, whose holy places were always on 
hill-tops. 

I am now returned to duty, flourishing and very happy to 
get back to the battalion. We are still Army Corps Reserve, 
but likely to be employed — Parturiunt montes. 

We have lately been common objects at Divisional Head- 
quarters, and sat round Staff officers discoursing to us, like 
the disciples of St. Francis and Savonarola round their masters, 
and we had one very amusing morning making and firing 
off bombs. They are most undependable, and the fuses either 
ignite practically before they are lit or never at all. The 
bombs I saw were so remiss in going off that I feel they 
are almost suitable toys for children. I lit one and threw 
it with a catapult. I disclosed my lack of deftness in striking 
matches, a characteristic of very early days. 

General Paris talked to us to-day. He looked most young 

215 



Charles Lister 

and cheery — brighter than I have ever seen him. He has 
a little poultry-yard at Headquarters and two roosters, a 
white one called Hindenburg and a buff Orpington called 
the Grand Duke — Hindenburg never allows the Grand Duke 
any play with the hens, but drives him away. 



To the Same. 

Hood Battalion, 

August 10, 1915. 

Many thanks for your letter and the Gis [burne] news . . . 
I should think Jock's fondness for hunting will make Mrs. 
Y. friendly, but I dare say a visit would help matters. 
Hunting seems so very remote now. 

I approved your comments on Lord 's scheme. He 

must be off his rocker. The soldiers, I hear, say the war will 
last at least another two years — particularly the French. I 
think if we are to go on for this time we shall have to run 
things in a different way to what we are doing now, as it seems 
agreed we are, at this rate, financially good for only one year. 
How we are to take our horns in I don't exactly see, so it is 
a pretty dilemma. Here we hear every day that Warsaw 
has fallen, which must mean a further prolongation. Apart 
from financial considerations, a long war is not altogether 
against our interests. It gives us time to pull up a number 
of unconsidered trifles in different parts of ,the world, which 
we should otherwise not have time to look at. Of all the 
Allies we have so far been the only gainers. The smashing 
up of German influence in the Far East, in the Persian Gulf, 
in the Pacific, in South-West Africa and in West Africa is 
an enormous gain. 

I have written Diana at length about recent fighting here. 
Results are so far shrouded in mystery. I don't think no 
news is always good news. The Hood Battalion, acting as 
Army Corps Reserve, have done no fighting. We are not 
even sleeping in our clothes. The men get instruction in the 
2l6 



Dardanelles Expedition 

" use and care " of the rifle and receive rather halting lectures 
on how to dig latrines in trenches, and other topics of martial 
interest. So all is pretty peaceful. We are so very callow 
just at present and our drafts so raw that it is not a bad plan 
some initial ignorance should be dispelled. The men's health 
is not quite as bad as it was, but is distressing us all a good 
deal. They cannot get rid of this mild dysentery. ... It 
affects their spirits and makes proper feeding an impossibility. 
However, we've been here since May 6th, and should be 
thankful nothing worse has made its appearance. 

To the Hon. Irene Lawley. 

Hood Battalion, 

August ii, 1915. 

Many, many thanks for your letter, which I loved getting. The 
Prophet is much given to self-repetition, but he has a glorious 
power of making his clouds into angels with sweeping wings, 
and giving nature a soul, and great lyrical fire. He is also an 
old fox, and the skilful use he makes of Gabriel and Allah to 
get him out of domestic difficulties commands respect. It is 
a pity Gabriel is not at the disposal of the modern husband — 
or wife. He is an " affable archangel " as far as the Prophet 
is concerned, and makes special exemptions for him not ac- 
corded to other believers. The Prophet was not too humani- 
tarian, and was at times inclined to compromise with idolatry ; 
but there is a fine statesmanship of the patriarchal type about 
the man. And he generally must be admitted to point out 
the evil consequences of unbelief as coming from God, not from 
his own armies. I can't find any positive order to kill the 
non-Moslem, and to the " People of the Book " he was, admin- 
istratively, most lenient. Mary in the Koran conceives under 
a date-tree near a stream of running water — a graceful image. 

I have been wounded again since I wrote, but it has been 
a very light affair and only kept me away for about a week, 
giving me the chance of going to Imbros, a dream island, where 
the mountain paths are choked with masses of Persian lilac 

217 



Charles Lister 

and the mulberry-trees are almost dark blue. I did little rides 
on pack-ponies all over the island the two days I was there 
and soaked myself in mulberries. I wonder there is not some 
Islamic legend making of the mulberry a transformed nymph ; 
the juice of the fruit is the nearest thing to blood in trees 
and flowers. You can't think how delighted one is to guzzle 
in fresh vegetables cooked by Greeks. Except for onions 
and potatoes they are the great dearth here. We get plenty 
of fresh meat, and I haven't eaten bully beef — which I don't 
like — since I have been on the Peninsula. I like all the 
other ration things, especially the men's stews and desiccated 
vegetables, etc. The form of bully beef is repellent. 

Annie has been very quiet lately, and altogether we get 
precious little shelling now. I feel we are not going to do 
any fighting for some time — we are such a long way short of 
strength, both in units qud Division and in officers — so you 
can be sure we are pretty safe. I believe we are being sat on 
by a commission which is to decide our fate. It is about this 
struggle against dissolution, which can only end one way, and 
to feel one is more or less out of it. 

Patrick, alas ! is not with us pro tem., as he is Army Corps 
liaison officer, but we see him quite often and the job gives 
more scope for his abilities than the little hack-work we do 
here in the way of instruction. I am, vice him, a company 
commander, which is rather comic. I leave all to my second- 
in-command, who is a sort of Dugald Dalgetty and was 
himself a C.P.O. and can jaw on any subject under the sun. 
Asquith is battalion second-in-command and a most distin- 
guished and respected figure. The men even take his advice 
about investing in War Loan. 

To the Same. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., 

August 13, 1915. 

You will have got my letter telling how it all happened. 
'• It" is really the two vaccination marks on shoulder and one. 
218 



Dardanelles Expedition 

on arm. It is now practically well, though I still have it 
dressed, and it has done just as well in camp as it would have 
done in hospital, where I should have been much more bored. 
Sick men are the last kind of company one wants if one is 
sick oneself, and yellow faces give me the pip. 

We have done nothing since I got back to the battalion. 
But time has gone pretty fast, as we have an agreeable mess. 
The fighting on this side has been in itself costly and unpro- 
ductive, but I fancy our attacks of the 6th and 7th (I forget 
dates) did have the effect of keeping Turks on this front who 
would have otherwise gone to the other front and opposed the 
new landing. We may have even done more. 

The new landing, intended to lead up to a " threat " at Maidos, 
is so far a partial success. It appears we got to all the critical 
points, but were not in sufficient force to hold them. A landing 
operation is like getting men over a bridge — you can't pass 
more than a certain number over within a certain time, so at 
the outset you have always strictly limited forces confronting 
unlimited forces on the enemy side. The last information to 
hand is to the effect that both sides are digging like badgers. 
We have, however, more troops to land, so it is possible that we 
may be able to break the Turkish line yet. But once we settle 
down into trench fighting it becomes a slow business, and addi- 
tional divisions dropped in don't make very much difference. 
I don't know what troops we've got to play with. At present 
it looks rather like a game of noughts and crosses, little landings 
here and there and Turks in between them. I trust the Germans 
haven't a large force to detach down to this part of the world to 
coerce the Balkan States into giving them a passage and so 
effect a junction with the Turk. 

Life is rather inactive, but we are comfortable enough, and 
the only distressing thing is the shaky health of the men. I 
have kept very well, and have initiated ovens for my people, 
so that they get roast as well as boiled. 

PS. — I feel that we shall never fight or move, and I shall not 
know what has happened if I wake up one morning and don't 
see Achi Baba on the skyline. 

219 



Charles Lister 

Let me here insert a letter to a friend from Mr. F. S. Kelly, of the Hood 
Battalion, which bears upon the position and the prospect of affairs in 
Gallipoli at this time. As it also refers to Charles it is not irrelevant. — R. 

Charles returned to the Peninsula somewhere about the end 
of June, when the original battalion was very much reduced in 
numbers by the heavy losses incurred on May 6th to June 4th. 

It was just about this time that every one began to realize 
that a continuance of the campaign on the lines hitherto laid 
down was very unlikely to achieve any success, and there was a 
consequent depression among all the ranks, which, if it had been 
unchecked, would have undoubtedly had a serious effect on 
their moral. It was precisely in checking this that Charles's 
influence was, by universal consent, invaluable. 

The heat, the swarm of flies, the horrible stench in the 
trenches, seemed to have no effect at all on his cheerfulness, and 
above all he didn't know what fear was. I can well remember 
the sensation created early one morning in the battalion on our 
right when they saw some one walking along out in front of their 
trench apparently quite unconcerned. 

It was Charles, to whom much the simplest method of solving 
a dispute that had been vexing the Staff and other authorities — 
as to whether there was or wasn't a trench at some particular 
point in " No Man's Land " — was to go and see. This was just 
about the time that he was wounded the second time — on the 
occasion of the rushing of a Turkish sap with some bombers. 
The last time he was wounded was pure ill-luck. 

To Charles's friends no praise would be excessive. I knew 
him before the war, but have never had an opportunity of 
cultivating his friendship before we were thrown together in the 
same battalion. I have certainly never known a more original 
character, nor one of more sterling worth, nor one either with a 
more exquisite sense of humour. On his second return from 
hospital from Imbros, he came laden with fresh fruit, vegetables, 
wine, and other luxuries, which, in the absence of transport, had 
to be left on the beach while he came up to camp to arrange 
for a limber party to be sent down for them. 

We all waited its arrival with impatience, and when eventually 
220 



Dardanelles Expedition 

the party came back to say that there was no gear there, and it 
became obvious that a stupid servant who had been left in 
charge had taken his eyes off it, there was a savage outburst of 
anger from all of us, and imagination ran riot in devising 
punishment to fit the offence. Charles's suggestion, however, 
as to what one could do with such a man was : " I think we 
must make him an officer." 



To Mrs. Graham Smith. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

August 14, 1914 [1915]. 

Ever so many thanks for two charming letters I have had 
from you. Clare's young man sounds very attractive, and I 
should think a great riding man, which is what she wants. 

The last few days here have been exciting, though we have 
rather played the role of Sister Ann, and waited for the cloud 
of dust to rise in the distance. The results to date of the new 
landing have not been brilliant, and the " thrust " at Maidos has 
not materialized. Our operations have been quite of secondary 
importance, simply meant to keep the Turks busy here and stop 
them sending troops away in any great quantities, and the san- 
guine estimates of a capture of Achi Baba, etc., have been rather 
beside the mark. 

The 29th lost a good many men in the latter fighting ; the 
actual results in capturing trenches, etc., are nil. I think the 
Turks have also lost prettily heavily, as they did some counter- 
attacking. We are again supposed to be short of shells. Such 
is life. It is disappointing, but, of course, no one knows how 
many troops we have got to play with. 

Our mess have snaffled a Frenchman to cook for us, of whom 
we have great hopes. Our only fear is that he may be coveted 
by some of our generals, etc. 

Rumours say that the 2nd Mounted Division (Scats and the 
rest of them) are fighting on their flat feet on the Anzac front. 
It is certainly the interesting front just now. I am gloriously 

221 



Charles Lister 

well, and have a pleasant mess and plenty of books, so the 
tedium of always being in the same place is obviated. We 
always get breezes, so don't suffer much from heat. 

To Mrs. Lewis. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F. 

Many thanks for your very kind letter. Cigarettes would be 
most welcome ; but send me a nice, damp plum-cake. If made 
damp and packed in tins they keep splendidly. There will be 
just time for you to get one cake out to me. We shall be 
through in six weeks' time I hope. 

No home-coming for me till then. We sailors (!) have been 
here from the first, and will see it out. 

It will be a bit sad coming back. . . . Think of Taplow 
nowadays. At least out here there is enough to do to stop 
me dwelling on these things. 

I got well from my wound in a week's time. Hospitals give 
me the pip, and I was very happy to get back to camp among 
my pals. Great fun we all have at our camp table. We do 
ourselves very well here, you'll be glad to hear ; but there is no 
Scott l to bring me my boots in the morning. Give him my 
love, and Freddy. 

Be good and look after the family well. Get T/te Tunes of 
July 23rd and cut out the Gallipoli news. It is about the 
Hood Battalion, although they don't give names. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., M.E.F., 

August 19, 1915. 

We are again in for a spell of work, and have just had 
Monday to Thursday in the reserve trenches — comfortable lines 
a good long way back. We shall shortly go up again into the 
firing-line, which is very nearly as safe, as I don't think we con- 

1 The hall-porter at the Cavendish Hotel. "Freddy" is Scott's fox- 
terrier. — R. 
222 



Dardanelles Expedition 

template doing any more attacking on this side till some real 
progress has been made on the other side. We seem quite 
jambed on this side, and all efforts to advance which have 
been recently made have been costly and unsuccessful. Every 
division tells the same story about its drafts. They come out 
insufficiently trained, so there is a feeling of staleness about the 
whole show on this side. We justify our existence by pinning 
a certain number of Turkish troops here. The Turks, I 
imagine, hold this line lightly with a few good troops and 
an enormous number of machine-guns, which are German 
manned. 

It is exciting H. being at last in a show and the Middlesex 
having their fling, which they so longed for. I am sure they 
will do well ; they are much better troops than Kitchener's 
Army, I feel. The 9th Corps have been a disappointment. 
They neutralized the effects of the expansion of the Anzac 
position by complete inaction after a virtually unopposed 
landing at Suvla. As troops they were not thought much of 
here. One I talked to did not know which hill was Achi Baba, 
and this after five days in the trenches, for they came here 
first before going to Suvla. 

Is it true, by the way, that Billy Grenfell has been killed ? 
— this would be too cruel news. It is a good thing Ivo is still 
too young. We have had rumours of it out here. 

I went for a visit to the firing-line yesterday, but saw nothing 
of any particular interest. At one point an old Turkish com- 
munication trench runs right into a sap of ours. We have a 
huge sandbag barricade with a loophole whence there is always 
protruding the point of a rifle. I fear the monotonies of trench 
warfare are still with us, but the discomfort is not serious and 
shelling is very intermittent. The Turkish shells are bursting 
very indifferently. 

Freyberg, after an absence of twenty-five days, has returned. 
This must be a record for any one hit in the stomach. He was 
brilliantly operated on, and the gash is perfectly healed. He 
saw H. in Egypt, and was probably the source of H.'s 
information as to me. 

223 



Charles Lister 

I am glad you liked the MS. It is the sort thing to put by, 
I think, and might be of interest when the events of the last 
few months have faded into the distance of time. 

Look up The Tunes of July 23rd. The last paragraph of the 
official news from Gallipoli describes the achievements of the 
Hood in the trenches that led up to my being wounded. I see 
Sir I. H. says we took the redoubt. Our orders were really on 
no account to take it. How news is made up. Do get that 
number. Mrs. Lewis can put the cutting in her scrapbook. 
Give her my love. 



To the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham. 

Hood Battalion, 

August 23, 1915. 

Since last I wrote I fear my worst anticipations as to the 
Anzac move have been realized, and it was so very nearly a 
brilliant success. The Turks were surprised, as they thought we 
were going to land in Asia and in the Gulf of Xeros, and it was 
only the dilatoriness of the O.C. 9th Corps which prevented us 
getting right across to Maidos and cutting off the Achi Baba 
army. If they reinforce heavily at once we shall be through by 

the autumn. If they don't . My fear is that the Germans 

may do a push through Serbia, get there before we've done our 
job, and play old Harry with everything in this part of the world. 
I only hope Sir Ian will be honest and state his requirements in 
the most explicit and insistent manner. 

We have been in the trenches lately — in reserve to the other 
brigade — and are now going up to hold the sector ourselves, 
which is fun. We have a jolly little cornfield in front of our old 
trenches, where was a tree on which a lot of pigeons and 
doves settled. If only I had had a shot-gun. There were also 
a lot of jays and little doves. 

We have just had a new draft — eight officers and two hundred 
men. The men impress every one very favourably. . . . 

How tragic about Billy. I almost dread my home-coming. 
224 



Dardanelles Expedition 

So many of our old joy-places will be full of ghosts. And 
here one does not have that feeling of the void and the ghosts 
which have taken the place of dear living forms. Julian and 
Billy were very close brothers, so one hopes they will some- 
where be united again. Shall write again shortly. 



To Mrs. Hamlyn. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., 

August 23, 1915. 

I must write and thank you very warmly for the Clovelly 
cake, which was eaten with enthusiasm, and was in pleasing 
contrast with our normal fare — not that that is so bad, but 

toujours perdrix . 

Since my second wound we have been very quiet till the last 
few days. The Naval Division are once more in the trenches. 
We had three pleasant days in a reserve trench — well behind — 
with any amount to eat and drink, and not too oppressive heat. 
When one gets away from our dust-heap of a camp the country 
is very smiling. 

The men were pretty happy in the trenches, and pleased me. 
We have now got a large new draft of men and some new 
officers. I am for the moment in the giddy position of 
company commander, with three subordinate officers. I've had 
a company before, but never so many underlings, and I feel 
rather embarrassed. The latest thing in officers in the R.N.D. 
is no worse than the latest thing in Kitchener's Army, judging 
from the specimens I saw in the hospitals and rest camps at 
Imbros — young men of tender age with queasy stomachs, to 
whom you and I with our Levantine experiences would feel 
very superior. 

I met Jones 1 at Alexandria, where he is with Sir H. McMahon. 
He is longing to fight, and regrets his age. I hear Francis is 
Raymond Asquith's senior officer in the Guards. 

1 Sir Louis Mallet's former butler, 



Charles Lister 

To Mrs. Graham- Smith. 

Hood Battalion, R.N.D., 

August 23, 1915. 

We have been pretty quiet lately, and I have had a certain 
amount of time for reading. 

What do you think of Lewes's " Life of Goethe " ? He is 
rather inclined to moralize and obtrude his own personality, 
but it is a good biography, I think. Lewes, of course, devoted 
rather unnecessary space to defending Goethe for actions which 
need no defence. Why, for example, should Goethe have 
made an honest woman of Friederike ? I should like to have 
seen Goethe more than almost any other great man, with his 
ideal beauty and piercing eyes. He is a much greater man 
than writer, really. 

What an odd lapse his writing a treatise on the Gift of 
Tongues in the Acts and on the real nature of the Ten 
Commandments. It is curious great men have been seduced 
into serious discussion of futilities by the spirit of their age. 

This is his last letter to me from the hospital ship Gascon. I refer to it in 
my memoir. At the same time he began a letter to his sister Diana. His 
nurse advised him not to go on writing it, as he was very restless and ill 
at ease. He assented, saying there was no hurry, and put the few lines 
he had written to Diana in one of the books he had been reading. — R. 

To Lord Ribblesdale. 

Hospital Ship, 

August 26, 1915. 
Just think, I have been wounded once more, the third time. 
We were in a trench, observing the Turkish trenches, when 
suddenly they fired some shells into our trenches. I went 
along to see what had happened, got my people back into a bit 
of a trench they had had to leave, then went down the trench, 
thinking the show was over, and then got it, being struck in the 
pelvis and my bladder being deranged, and slight injuries in 
the legs and calves, 
„2 2 6 



Dardanelles Expedition 

I have been operated on, but am sketchy as to what has 
been done. I am on a hospital ship, comfy enough, but feeling 
the motion of it a good deal, and I have to be in bed and 
cannot change my position. The hours go slowly, as one 
does not feel very much up to reading. However, I got to 
sleep all right. 

I feel this will be a longish job, and I don't know where 
I shall do my cure — perhaps Alexandria. 

My doctor is quite happy at the way things are going. The 
shell that hit me killed one man and wounded the others. 

Forgive this scrawl, but it's not easy to write. 

In my memoir I spoke of Sir Ian Hamilton's Honours dispatch. A 
few days ago I wrote and asked whether I might quote its actual words. 
He has approved of my doing so, and, indeed, seemed to wish it. Here 
it is.— R. 

\Copy of Original^ 

" For brilliant deeds of gallantry throughout our operations. 
On July 1 6th he was specially brought to notice for heading 
an assault against an enemy's stronghold. Again, on July 21st, 
he personally reconnoitred a Turkish communication trench, 
and, although wounded (for the second time), he returned 
and led forward a party to the attack. Subsequently he was 
a third time wounded and has since died, to the sorrow of 
all ranks who knew him." 

One more letter and I have done. Colonel Bernard Freyberg, D.S.O., 
now commanding the Hood Battalion in France, sent me this letter only 
the other day. It is dated July 30, 1916* and is written by Lieutenant 
Ivan Heald, of the Hood Battalion, to Colonel Freyberg. — R. 

There is, I learn, some hope that a little memoir will be 
published by a friend of Charles Lister's. Would it be possible 
for you to let the author know something of the splendid lead 
which Lister gave to the junior officers who served with him in 
the Hood Battalion ? Charles Lister was a tower of strength to 
us, and you, Sir, I am sure, will agree that his wonderful person- 
ality was a great aid to you in your task of rebuilding a 

227, 



Charles Lister 

battalion of fighting men out of the salvage left from the 
disaster of June 4th. 

We had seen our hopes of speedy victory smashed before 
our eyes ; our few men were broken with the endless drudgery 
of trench digging, and every one was yearning for relief. 

Then follows a passage which I've quoted in my memoir, in which 
Mr. Heald speaks of Charles returning to the battalion — his wounds 
healed — and assuring them " joyously " that they were having the 
time of their lives. He goes on : 

Henceforward, who were so cheerful as the Hoods ? There 
was no mess in the Peninsula, I'll swear, so merry as ours, with 
Lister leading such rare wits as Asquith, Kelly, and Patrick 
Shaw-Stewart — Lister always on the most uncomfortable 
packing-case, declaiming and denouncing with that dear old 
stiff gesture of his, which we came to know so well. 

But the strongest impression I have of Lister was his eager 
sense of duty. Throughout the war I have never met a man in 
whose heart there burned so steadily that first fine flame that 
sent us all out soldiering. He was ever on the look-out for 
something useful to be doing. His willingness to sacrifice 
himself seemed part of some high secret religion of his own ; 
and those who mourn for him must realize that this, coupled 
with his serene disdain of danger, inevitably meant his fall 
sooner or later in the campaign. 

We were six months in the trenches after he died, but I, for 
one, know how much his example helped me to carry on through 
that dreary stretch. The legacy he left us was rich indeed. 



.228 



Recollections 



ETON, 1900-5 

BY MRS. WARRE CORNISH 

Charles went up for a Foundation Scholarship at Eton in July 1900, and 
was elected from a private school (St. Aubyn's, Rottingdean) that eschewed 
all cramming. His master, Mr. T. Stanford, wrote to me that his per- 
formance did him great credit, " considering that I have never given him 
half an hour's more work than any other boy in the school." It was very 
hot weather at the time, and Charles was not very well. Mr. Stanford 
goes on to say: "Charles's pluck was to be admired. In the 'General 
Knowledge ' paper his nose bled profusely, but he did not stop working 
and remained on until he had finished it. His blood-stained paper has 
come back to me as a trophy which I shall always keep." 

Mrs. Warre Cornish thus describes her impression of Charles in these 
days. — R 

Amongst the contrasts of Charles's life and the several 
inspirations which swayed him from time to time, it must be 
remembered that he was born a scholar ; that is to say, he not 
only had linguistic taste and an innate love of Greek and Latin 
poetry, myth, and history, but that the faculty of grammatical 
accuracy was thrown in with other gifts. Now, scholarly 
accuracy, like the blessing of a good verbal memory or the 
power of early rising, opens an easy school career to not a few ; 
still, great delight was felt at home by the successful result of 
the examinations for College at Eton. He made light of it 
himself; the carriage which was to meet him at Gisburne 
returned without the scholar. It turned out that the train had 
carried him past his station ; the home-comer being occupied 
at the time under the seats of the compartment trying to 
recapture some white mice which cared little for junctions or 
connections. 

The question now arose whether Charles should follow his 

2|I 



Charles Lister 

elder brother Tommy's example and enter Eton as an Oppidan 
or accept the bounty of the Founder. On the one hand was 
Oppidan Eton, its spacious precedents of school-life, its world- 
known traditions ; on the other hand, College and its vigorous 
independence ; its power to mould and stimulate the natural 
gifts of a clever boy ; its intellectual and individual con- 
servatism. As it happened, there was no immediate vacancy 
in College, so Charles entered the School in the house of Mr. 
Bowlby. " From the first," his tutor writes, " things intel- 
lectual attracted him, and by his own preference (after many 
discussions between his parents and me) and by my advice he 
chose College. From first to last he loved College, and would 
cheer like a frenzied thing on St. Andrew's Day when Collegers 
won the match against Oppidans." 

Thus in January 1901 he became a Scholar on the Founda- 
tion by his own choice. He was placed with a clever and 
versatile set, all alike in this, that their facility constituted their 
chief temptation to taking things easily. One of his greatest 
friends from 1902 onwards was Julian Grenfell. They were in 
Mr. Bowlby's pupil-room together. Edward Horner and Rex 
Benson, also close allies of Charles's, were in Mr. Bowlby's 
house. Billy Grenfell — a greater scholar than any — was only 
two years his junior in the school. Contemporary with the 
two famous Oppidan brothers, Julian and Billy Grenfell, 
were the two Colleger brothers — both also killed in action — 
Reggie and George Fletcher. In College, too, were Charles's 
gieat friends, Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Ronald Knox, Alan 
Parsons, Robin Laffan and Foss Prior. Of this company six 
have been killed and two have been wounded in the great war. 

At this time Julian Grenfell had raised the level of Eton 
House debates. And in College, debate rose to quite a high 
standard. There is an institution called College Pop, a self- 
elected debating society of twenty of the senior Collegers. 
College Pop debates were at all times regarded more seriously 
than those of other Eton societies: and Shaw-Stewart, Fletcher, 
Knox, Prior, Laffan and Marsden brought something like fame 
in the School at large to these discussions. 
232 




CHARLES LISTER. 
Eton, circa 1903-4. 



Eton, 1900-5 

Charles had been three years at Eton and was at the close 
of his seventeenth year when his elder brother Tommy was 
killed by some straggling Somali spearman, while carrying dis- 
patches, after the battle of Jidballi in January 1904. Captain 
Thomas Lister had fought in most of the battles of the cavalry 
campaign against the Boers with his regiment, the 10th 
Hussars. He was twice wounded. He won the D.S.O. ; in 
Sir Ian Hamilton's words, " he was a brave leader of men." 
To soldierly qualities he added no common taste in literature, 
a power of sustained reading, sterling gifts for friendship and 
for sport, and every endowment which made him a perfect 
eldest son. Of his death [Lady Ribblesdale wrote : " His 
only fault was that he was too brave, and when he galloped 
out of sight and out of hearing into the mists of immortality, 
he feared no evil." 

Charles was at home at Gisburne for his holidays when the 
first news of his brother being missing, after the victory at 
Jidballi, reached England. Some days of suspense followed, 
then the blow fell. 

It was not the first time that Charles had been called on to 
exercise sympathy, perhaps one of the rarest gifts in the school- 
boy. If we go further back in the annals of Gisburne we find 
that it had already been his role to console. The following 
letter was written in 1897, when he was ten years old, to his 
grandmother, Emma Lady Ribblesdale. As a little boy much 
of Charles's time had been spent with her, and she possessed the 
rare gift of turning a child's mind in a perfectly simple way 
towards high and heavenly things. The death of her second 
son, Martin Lister, 1 came as a terrible sorrow to her in the 
spring of this year. Charles's love of his grandmother and his 
recognition of her spirituality inspired this letter of his child- 
hood. His relations with her were always intimate and loving : 
the spell of her beauty and dignity felt by him in these early 
days remained unbroken to the end. 

1 My brother was British Resident of Negri Sembilan Malaya. He died 
on his way home of fever, February 24, 1897, aged 39.— R. 

2.33 



Charles Lister 

" Dear Granny, — How unhappy it must have been for you 
when you heard that dear Martin was dead, for whenever he had 
the chance of being kind, he was. How unhappy you must have 
been with us, many unhappinesses at a time, father's head, 1 then 
poor little Charles Tennant's death, alas ! God takes away souls 
and gives back, but think that Uncle Martin is happy up above 
the sky, where he continually is praising God in the City of gold 
with the twelve gates of pearl and precious stones ; think that 
he is singing to golden harps, clad in white robes like those 
holy ones who are continually praising Him at the foot of His 
throne ; think of all the beauties of heaven as described in 
St. John's Revelation about the golden floor and crystal river. 
When you feel sad, read over to yourself that beautiful chapter 
in Revelation, I forget the number, but I dare say you remember 
reading it to us in the happy times at Gisburne, when you 
used to read to me all the beautiful bits of the different books 
of the Bible. Good-bye from your very affectionate grandson, 
Charles." 

Childish feeling about death, however fresh, does not touch 
the reality. With the loss of his elder brother, death entered 
into the world for Charles. It was about this time that I first 
knew him at Eton. He was always cheerful, and his gay 
manner — even reckless gaiety — never failed his friends there. 
But he felt the event poignantly, and eighteen months after- 
wards wrote to Lady Ribblesdale at the loss of his friend 
Merton at Eton : " I was only just beginning to get over the 
death of Tommy." And it seemed to those who knew him 
behind the scenes that there was a sense of inadequacy about 
himself which troubled him that year. Some ideal of a soldier's 
life on active service might now have floated before him. But 
he was one of the Collegers who hung the wreath of peace 
round the neck of the Founder's statue in the school yard on 
June 2, 1902, at the Peace. And no great European cause 
appeared likely to draw his country into war. His tutor, 
Mr. Bowlby, whose perceptive judgment touches the spirit 

1 His father had just had a bad fall out hunting. — B. W. C. 
234 



Eton, 1900-5 

and not the letter of events and character at Eton, has written 
to me of that time : " Charles was deeply religious by instinct, 
with rare spiritual depths, not easily revealed, only half under- 
stood by himself. In fact he was diffident — inclined to be 
hypersensitive, seeing the ideal more clearly." 

Here are a few subjects which interested this unusual Eton 
boy : the teaching of English in South Africa, the problem of 
our repatriation on Boer soil ; Franciscanism in the twentieth 
century — the great spread and use of its lay Third Order 
to-day; Mr. Luxmoore's interest in Ruskin's industrial and 
financial theories. 

All this sounds tame, but my impressions are chiefly of 
backwaters of school-life. The scene of our conversation was 
sometimes the river. There is a bend in the Thames below 
the Playing Fields well known to fishermen. Here the great 
Provost Sir Henry Wotton fished ; and here floats the masters' 
raft, where the boating party starts down-stream with masters 
and boys and follows the quiet reaches below Romney lock to 
the Bells of Ouseley. The charm of these expeditions is their 
remoteness from boisterous school-life — the School only boats 
up-stream above Windsor Bridge. Charles was not a very 
hardworking rower, and a " dry bob " by choice, but he pulled 
with pleasure a leisurely oar. In the Fellows' Library of the 
Cloisters he was a willing student of its treasures. My husband 
delighted in showing him mediseval manuscripts and early 
printed books. It was noted that his preference was for the 
chapel-builder's wage - book and Caxton's Piers Plowman. 
Charles was growing more interested in Socialism every day. 
But, as I have said, I can but describe backwaters. The great 
stream of school-life was bearing Charles on, and Mr. Ronald 
Knox must speak of its wider issues. 

One home recollection yet must find its place here : his 
mother's visit to Charles when he got up a lecture for a 
Russian reformer. The occasion is described by Mr. Knox. 
Sufficient to say here that Charles was the subject of much 
chaff about his mild Revolutionist. The occasion was not 
merely revolutionary but gently convivial, and he allowed no 
such trifles to disturb his equanimity. 

235 



Charles Lister 



The tenantry, household, and workpeople on the estate gave Charles a 
gold watch and chain on his twenty-first birthday. His mother was away 
from us, trying to recover her health. It is impossible to express through 
any furniture of words what Charles, his future, and his possibilities meant 
to her ever since he was a tiny boy ; so, though perhaps her letter to our 
Gisburne people about his coming of age and their present falls outside 
more recent events, I include it here. — R. 

Pendyfpryn Hall, Penmaenmawr, 

November 15, 1908. 

Dear Friends, 

I must write you a line from my retreat to tell you 
how touched I was by your kindness and generosity to my son 
Charles. 

It is the second time you have shown your goodness and 
generosity to my sons, and I feel most deeply grateful to 
you all. 

Charles will, I am sure, be very delighted with the beautiful 
watch and chain you were good enough to give him ; and the 
sympathy and interest you have shown him will be an incentive 
to him to work well at Oxford, and do his best when education 
is over and real work begins. He will keep the dedication 
always by him to remind him of all his kind and well-wishing 
friends. I hope that as he grows older his passionate interest in 
humanity may be wisely directed and be of use to the world. 

It is a sorrow to me to have to be exiled in this sanatorium, 
away from all I love ; but I trust that as I get stronger it may 
not be so very long before I am allowed to return to you all. 
It seems such a much quicker process to lose one's health than 
to regain it ; but I am thankful to say I am progressing slowly. 

Thanking you all once more and wishing you a prosperous 
winter, 

I am, 

Your sincere friend, 

C. RlBBLESDALE. 



236 



ETON AND BALLIOL, 1905-6 

BY THE REV. RONALD KNOX 

It is hard to say when it was that you first became con- 
scious of Charles at Eton as a public character. There 
was an early stage at which, as he sat "socking" at 
Rowland's, he once lamented his own lack iof popularity. 
That certainly did not last long ; he had a vogue soon 
enough, but only in virtue of a reckless, irresponsible manner 
he carried with t him. He found more serious interests by a 
process his friends saw nothing of; and by the time it was 
realized that he had unequalled gifts as a companion it was 
realized also that he held unusual views. Before the beginning 
of his last year he was already noted in debate as a champion 
of the oppressed : it was a political, not an economical, stand- 
point at first, and took the form of an interest in the fortunes 
of continental revolutionaries, not always very clearly dis- 
tinguishable from Anarchists. He collected with marvellous 
rapidity what seemed an impossible sum from College for the 
relief of distressed Jews in a foreign capital. He held a meeting 
in aid of the same object, engaging a hall in Windsor and 
placarding the town with generous announcements of it. It 
was not largely attended, but it seemed like an evening in 
fairyland, especially when solos from " The Tempest " by a 
well-known singer were interspersed with the speeches (some 
of them a little tedious) which were the marrow of the occasion. 
One morning seventy pictures of Father Gapon (then a news- 
paper hero) arrived for distribution in College, and it was after 
this that the lecture in hall (already referred to) introduced 

2 37. 



Charles Lister 

his friends to a genuine revolutionary — a gentleman who 
denounced Father Gapon as a renegade, to the mystification 
of his audience. We lost sight of him when he left England, 
but his signature remains in the Visitors' Book kept by Charles's 
" mess," in a mixed company, along with those of three diocesan 
bishops. 

Charles's enthusiasm for the Labour Movement came very 
little later. He was a Socialist in his utterances before the 
General Election of 1906, before Labour became a fashion, 
petted by Society and patted gingerly on the back by dig- 
nitaries of the Church. All this was due to width of mind 
reacting on an intense passion for justice. This passion showed 
itself in other ways. It was he who inspired a giant protest 
to the Head Master on a matter affecting the interests of the 
boys, but not strictly within their province. It is interesting 
to remember how he had the memorial printed, signed by the 
three most prominent people in each House, and presented to 
the Head Master by a trembling Captain of the School, all within 
two days ; interesting, too, to trace in its stately language the 
love of the democrat for constitutional forms. His sense of 
justice was even so abstract and detached as to make him feel 
a slight put upon himself with a quite impersonal indignation ; 
and those who dissuaded him from sending it can still remem- 
ber the drafting of a letter to one of the masters on some 
private grievance : " Sir," it began, " this kind of thing will 
not do." 

Such feelings, almost Quixotic in their vehemence, would 
ordinarily be associated with an angularly minded, unpleasantly 
precocious boy, whom the schoolboy world would either ignore 
or make fun of. Eton, probably more than any other public 
school, is a kindly nurse of eccentricities ; but none of her 
tolerance was needed for acceptance of Charles. For no one 
was ever more natural, more unlike the morbid, spectacled 
pariah who leaves and looks back upon his public school with 
resentment. 

At the beginning of his last year (September 1905-6) he was 
elected, though a Colleger and without athletic distinction, to 
23S 



Eton and BallioU 1905-6 

the rigidly exclusive privileges of " Pop." " Pop,'* or " Eton 
Society," is a self-elected athletic and debating society of 
ancient and intricate traditions. From time to time its debates 
rise to a high level, for instance when Alfred Lyttelton's genius 
for games made him a leader and some statesman-like promise 
was shown in debates in Pop. Mr. Shaw-Stewart writes in the 
privately printed Memorials of Julian of " the temporary wave 
of intellectualism in high places traceable in Pop " in Charles 
Lister's and Julian Grenfell's time. He speaks of " the intelli- 
gentzia of Pop, a force stronger then, and more leavening the 
lump, I distinctly consider, than often of late years." Charles 
had a freakish spirit of harmless mischief more ordinarily 
found in less serious characters. To see, for instance, a driver- 
less horse and cart standing in the road was to leap in and 
drive round the next block of houses with the airs of a 
charioteer. Authority laughed at such freaks, as it condoned 
the obtrusion of phrases like " Laodicean prelates and stuffy 
ecclesiastical laymen " in his " Sunday questions," because it 
was simply impossible to take amiss, if you knew him, what 
he did or said. His gaiety was infectious : like the hero of 
Mr. Chesterton's " Manalive " he " dealt life," and those contem- 
porary Etonians who look back on that year as the happiest 
they ever spent easily trace the inspiration of it to him. 

In the Easter holidays of 1906 he was operated on for 
appendicitis. He and a friend of his who had just had the 
same operation were consequently interdicted from excessive 
indulgence (if there was danger of it) either in work or in 
athletics. The result was a literary venture which had a 
troubled career, but a sale and a popularity equally undoubted 
— The Outsider, an ephemeral which ran to six numbers in two 
months. Charles was one of the seven editors, and its columns, 
dead as their interest is now, show Charles in his happiest vein 
of fooling. He had an unlimited facility for producing topical 
nonsense at a moment's notice. His were rough and ready 
methods. One morning at breakfast one of his mess received a 
book to review for the Eton College Chronicle, and complained 
of its length — it was a school story. Charles took it out of his 

239. 



Charles Lister 

hands, opened it exactly in the middle with a bored gesture, 
and tore it down the back : he returned the first half and dealt 
with the second himself. The review was sent in the same day, 
and it would puzzle the most hardened of higher critics now 
to detect the join in its composition. 

As a speaker he often hesitated in the arranging of his ideas, 
but whether in speaking or writing he was never for a single 
moment at loss for a word. 

To pass from Eton to Oxford, October 1906, was a slight 
change. He had already the tastes of a man, and he never 
lost the spirit of a boy. His political activities naturally found 
freer scope. Old friends of the movement would not dispute 
him the title of having created Socialism as a practical force in 
undergraduate Oxford. 

It was in his second year, autumn 1907 to summer 1908, 
that the more practical of Charles's departures were made. He 
was then running closely in harness with the Independen 
Labour Party and the Fabian Society. He had the great man's 
power of making others his unwilling or hesitating instru- 
ments. You would find yourself entertaining a Labour Member 
for the evening, or helping to organize an exhibition, or bicycling 
out with him on a winter's night to Banbury and back to 
address a nascent trades union. If you shrank from the most 
trivial of such tasks you might have him striding up and down 
your bedroom pulverizing you with texts from St. James. It 
was not that he shone in oratory ; he had neither the command 
of voice nor the self-possession to " go down " at the Union, and 
even in a private room, though he knew his subject and carried 
weight, his hands must be nervously busy as he spoke, and 
you would find the torn fragments of his notes littering the 
hearthrug when he sat down. But he organized unceasingly 
and without apparent effort. Meetings seemed to spring up 
at his feet. His political activities hardly seemed to exhaust 
a tithe of his energies, whether at this time or later. In his 
first year Charles, however affaird, attended the eleven o'clock 
service at Cowley, in the Church of the Cowley Fathers, on an 
average of every other Sunday, quite apart from College chapels. 
240 



Eton and BallioU 1905-6 

Some of the best meetings which Charles organized were 
under the auspices of a Committee for Lectures on Social 
Subjects in Oxford, which he founded and raised subscriptions 
for and practically controlled. He started two trades unions 
in the town, and got up a Sweated Industries Exhibition. 
As we know, he was the animating spirit of the Orthodox 
Club, one of the liveliest of the mushroom growths of his day. 
Meanwhile, he never seemed to produce friction with older 
institutions. He was in constant touch with members of Ruskin 
College. The University branch of the Fabian Society had 
a membership of about twenty when he came up, and he left 
it about a hundred strong ; and whatever was thought of his 
political sympathies by those who have regretted the tendency 
of them then, or the change in them since, it was due to his 
magnetic personality that it acquired that strength without 
incurring the persecution to which new elements in a con- 
servative society are naturally liable. 

There is a story that a College authority, estimating the 
prospects of a friend of Charles, complained that his work 
suffered from attention to "externals," and, when pressed for 
a definition of these, instanced " Socialism and Christianity." 
If any such fears were entertained for Charles himself, if any- 
body supposed that, like other strong partisans, he would gain 
from Oxford a mere seminarist training, instead of drinking 
in its intellectual life, they underestimated his infinite variety. 
Charles justified his exhibition at Balliol by a First in Greats 
at the end of his third year (June 1909). It was not a mere 
" scholar's first." Greek history took such hold of him that he 
went in for a fellowship, declaring his readiness to spend his 
life in the research of it. He threw himself into everything, 
if it were merely watching a play or preparing a practical joke, 
as if that was all he lived for. 

Seventeen Etonians came up to Balliol that year, several of 
them already intimate friends. Naturally there was something 
of a clique, and it threatened to be an exclusive one. Three, 
besides Charles, have already died in battle, and if there 
were any bitter memories, they have been forgotten. But 
R , ,24 1 



Charles Lister 

Charles, although he was the life and soul of that society 
was never the property of a single set ; he seemed to know 
everyone in a singularly unhomogeneous College, and his friends 
outside College defied classification. He was quite conscious 
of his position as a buffer state in these social difficulties. Soon 
after he went down he expressed the feeling in characteristic 
language to a friend (Alan Lascelles). 

Paris, 
March 27, 1910. 

Thanks for your Oxford news, confirmed by Sidney to-day, 
whom I saw on his way to Italy. Edward, I am told on all 
hands, is immense, living at the rate of thousands a year. 

The new " Anna " l does not seem to manage the Balliol 
democracy half as well as in the old days. They have neither 
Julian to suppress the plebs nor a good fellow like me to 
keep them in a good temper. Things worked very well when I 
was there to cover up Julian's tracks, and Julian was there to 
make fresh tracks, as it were, and overawe the rebellious. 

Political Oxford, sporting Oxford, ecclesiastical Oxford, 
intellectual Oxford, philanthropic Oxford, revolutionary Oxford, 
all knew him as a familiar. His infectious vitality galva- 
nized everything : no festive occasion was complete without 
him, no meeting would suffer him to keep silence, and he 
even contrived to instil a certain heartiness into the cloistered 
Gregorians of the Cowley Fathers' church. His lighter and his 
more serious moments were strangely blended. Once when 
he came into collision with the authorities of Trinity, he was 
rusticated for the short remnant of a term. Having made 
arrangements for the entertainment of an expected guest, a 
Labour M.P., he went off to study poverty at first-hand in 
an East-End Settlement. 

He had none of the inhuman detachment which often makes 
public characters unknowable in private ; while he tolerated 
widely, he was whole-hearted in his attachments to personal 

1 Vide footnote, p. 47. 

242 



Eton and Balliol, 1905-6 

friends. His friendship enriches the past, and the memories 
you shared with him stand out vividly from a hazier back- 
ground, whether you picture him shooting on a Scotch moor, 
or assisting boisterously at a stormy meeting of the Church 
Congress, or applauding the efforts of M. de Rougemont to ride 
a turtle in a tank at the Manchester Hippodrome. Though he 
was at the moment of action regardless of the figure he cut, he 
could laugh at himself in private and prove his sense of propor- 
tion. His richest vein of humour, whether in conversation or 
in writing, was a running parody of bad journalese ; his least 
serious writing was almost always in this manner. 1 But the 
secrets of personality, especially in a personality so complex, 
necessarily evade description. 

One thing must be added to complete any account of this 
phase of his career — " phase " it must be called, not in the sense 
that it was foreign to his true self, or that it left no mark on his 
character, but because the very conditions of it were transitory. 
At its conclusion he did not abandon progressive politics ; he 
abandoned politics. If he had been a poor man with his own 
way to make in the world, he might have betaken himself to 
journalism or the Bar, with a view to Parliament later on. But 
he could not tolerate the idea of a political path made easy by 
the possession of an income and a horizon bounded by the 
prospect of a seat in the House of Lords. His adventurous 
spirit found more opportunities promised by a diplomatic 
career. This is not an inference from what he did, but the 
substance of a conversation with him before he went down 
from Oxford — indeed, at a time when his Socialist sympathies 
were at their height. His friends were not afraid of his being 
merely absorbed into a machine ; they knew that whatever path 
he took they would hear of him again. 

1 I rather demur— but perhaps I don't understand. — R. 



243 



OXFORD, 1906-10 

BY CYRIL BAILEY 

CHARLES LISTER won a Classical Exhibition at Balliol from 
Eton, and came up in the autumn of 1906 with several of the 
unusually brilliant group of friends described in the Eton 
recollections : Ronald Knox and Patrick Shaw-Stewart were 
among the Classical Scholars of Balliol and Robin Laffan 
was the Brakenbury Scholar of the year ; Julian Grenfell 
and George Fletcher were contemporaries, too, at Balliol. 
Charles himself, a Classical Exhibitioner, was not by nature 
a " pure scholar " or a brilliant composer, and had little of 
the polish and grace and linguistic wit which makes an 
Ireland Scholar ; his Exhibition had been awarded rather on 
the promise of a very vigorous mind, which seemed to ride 
roughshod over minor points and petty difficulties in a fresh 
and enthusiastic search for the heart of the matter in hand. 
He decided at once — and rightly — that he would not read 
for Honours in Moderations, but would take the Greats School 
at the end of his third year. This meant that there was no 
immediate pressure of examinations — he had only to take 
Pass Moderations at the end of his second term — and that 
he had both time and scope for all his other interests, social 
and political. " In his first two years," says his Greats tutor, 1 
" I have no very clear recollection of his work, except as that 
of a man who could obviously do very much better if he put 
more mind into it." But this does not mean that he was 

1 Mr. A. D. Lindsay. 
2"44 



Oxford, 1906-10 

idle or inconspicuous : it was impossible for him to be either 
one or the other. 

Charles had already at Eton identified himself fearlessly 
with the Socialist party, and at Oxford threw himself into 
work on their lines, both in theory and practice. He had come 
up as an almost notorious character, and at once assumed the 
lead. His personality could not escape observation ; his rapid 
movements, his eagerness in discussion, his infectious laugh, 
and his sudden indignation at anything that seemed to be 
unjust, were all welded together by a high enthusiasm which 
made light of details, and by an irresistible charm. 

His first start was on the theoretical side ; and with a few 
intimate friends — the more prominent approaching Socialism 
from the point of view of High Church Christianity— he 
founded a more or less Socialistic society named the " Orthodox 
Club." 

" It would be difficult," says one who was present at its first 
meetings, " to find anywhere more concentrated, mixed heresy 
than in that society, but its members had all in common the 
gift of 'taking a high line' and insisting that Orthodoxy 
was their doxy, however uncommon that might be." 

I think to the outsider the most impressive thing about 
Charles Lister at that time was just this serene power of 
taking a high line, and carrying off in the most natural way 
very different roles. He had no doubt improved as a speaker 
since Eton days, but he would never have made a facile 
orator: however much he might have prepared his subject, 
at the time he could not deliver dispassionately what he had 
thought out, but wrestled again as he spoke, starting new 
hares and "worrying" afresh: it was his enthusiasm more 
than his words which carried conviction. 

"The Orthodox Club," a Freshman's Club par excellence, 
chiefly represented Socialism at Balliol. Outside Balliol, 
Charles was soon to ally himself with the Fabian Society, 
and to spread the same interests in the University. The 
Fabian Society had hitherto been a small and rather despised 
group : Charles increased its members fourfold and made it 

245 



Charles Lister 

" the thing " to belong to it. This mushroom growth not 
unnaturally roused scepticism, and it was said superficially 
that " the only explanation of the apparent sudden conversion 
of men of the most different lives to the tenets of Socialism 
was that no one was capable of resisting Charles when he 
button-holed him for more than two minutes." 

From the outside it looked a little unreal, but on closer 
acquaintance it became clear that so far from Charles being 
a poseur, his extraordinary success came from his being 
supremely natural and genuine. 

He was consumed by a passion to help the poor and weak : 
that was the driving power of his life, and those of his friends 
who thought his opinions quite mad were unanimous as to 
the earnestness with which they were held. His own driving 
power became a motive to others, and many, to whom a more 
strictly theoretical Socialism could have made no appeal, were 
brought to it on the human side with something of Charles's 
own passion for justice. Charles's practical work was not less 
noticeable than his theoretic, indeed more so, for it is a most 
unusual thing for an undergraduate at Oxford to take any 
prominent part in the affairs of the town. 

He was soon at home in Ruskin Hall, then newly founded 
and rather in danger of being " patronized " by the University, 
and Charles by his perfectly natural manner did much — though 
quite unconsciously — to bring its students into a real relation 
with undergraduate life and to lay the foundation for a genuine 
mutual understanding. 

In the same way he formed a natural friendship with the 
Labour leaders in the town, and won the unswerving love and 
loyalty of many members of the Oxford Trades' Council and 
the Oxford Branch of the Independent Labour Party : up to 
the time of his death they still inquired after him with affection. 
Indeed, he quickly became their leader, pulling them along 
into fresh activities and new developments which would have 
been impossible without him. 

Among many other things in the same line, he organized 
a most successful Anti-Sweating Exhibition, which un- 
.246 



Oxford, 1906-10 

doubtedly aroused many to a serious understanding of industrial 
evils. " Through all this he displayed the same qualities : a 
steady working enthusiasm, a power of getting on with every- 
body and making everybody work, and a great gift of knowing 
what was practical and what was not." Even more charac- 
teristic was the part Charles played in a strike of girls at the 
Clarendon Press. He brought speakers down from London to 
encourage the strikers, and night after night arranged concerts 
and entertainments to keep the girls together. This enterprise 
got him into some difficulties with the University authorities — 
for the position of an undergraduate favouring a strike at the chief 
University institution was, to say the least of it, delicate — and 
he had several interviews with the Vice-Chancellor. Charles 
saw the difficulty, and all closed amicably, but he had held his 
own with the same high-handed frankness as ever. 

All this time Charles was in the full swim of the social life of 
the College. His Eton friends were all around him, and he 
enjoyed to the full all the irresponsible pleasures of a high- 
spirited undergraduate's life. 

The escapades of a certain dining society, the Annandale, 
brought him into disfavour with the authorities and its 
exclusiveness x with the rest of the College ; but anger was 
never directed against Charles ; not that he was in any sense a 
conscious peacemaker, but that social distinctions seemed to 
have no meaning for him, and he ignored quarrels as if they did 
not exist. The combination of this life with his political 
activities would have been impossible to most men ; to Charles 
it was natural, for he could pass from one set of surroundings 

1 September 13, 191 1. 

" T. and W. have been here lately— Balliol boys, and very good fellows 
—at least, I think so now. I liked T. only fairly well at Balliol, but I 
think the Anna cliqueyness warped our judgment — mine less so perhaps 
than the others'." 

The two rival protagonists in the troubles here referred to joined the 
same battalion in 1914 ; became (it is said) great friends; and were 
reported, the one killed, the other missing, in the same casualty list 
(August 1915). 

247. 



Charles Lister 

to another with complete unconsciousness of inconsistency of 
even, it sometimes seemed, of change. 

In much of the social life he was casual and unguarded, and 
often really inconsistent with his ideals. He lived too much in 
the moment, and often was characteristically thoughtless of 
consequences for others and for himself. In the summer term 
of 1908 he was suddenly pulled up. There had been a supper 
and a bonfire in Trinity ; Charles was there with his friends of 
the Annandale, and went too far. There was an unpleasant 
collision with the Trinity authorities, and, as a consequence, he 
was sent down for the rest of the term. His undergraduate 
friends treated the affair frivolously and with no very good 
taste. Charles carried it off, at the moment, with humour 
and with his usual high hand ; and then, with what was 
almost an inspiration in the "high line," went and worked 
at the Trinity Mission in West Ham. He said afterwards 
that he was grateful to the College for what it had done, and 
that it was " the best thing that ever happened to me." 

It seems as if, while he thought things over that summer, he 
must have come to a deliberate conclusion that the real task 
before him for the moment was to work for " Greats." At any 
rate, when he came back in the autumn there was no doubt that 
this was his primary object, and everything else was for the 
time put in the background. To quote again from his " Greats " 
tutor : " The next year he was trying to do in one year what 
was ordinarily done in two. I never saw a man work so hard 
and so sensibly. He was not by nature a philosopher ; he was 
never sufficiently reflective or abstract, but he ' got up ' philo- 
sophy with remarkable ability. On the other hand, he showed 
himself a really good historian. He had a wonderful grasp of 
detail — the faculty shown in practice in the earlier time was 
now directed to his work — and a power of seizing the general 
drift and meaning of detail. The result was that he not only 
got a First, but a very good First. His History papers won 
very special commendation from the examiners as being 
clearly up to the mark of a Fellowship." It was a great effort, 
carried through with all his enthusiasm, and it was well 
248 



Oxford, 1906-10 

rewarded. There is no evidence that Charles thought much 
of his First as such, but he certainly felt that his work had 
given him a sounder basis to build upon. After he went down, 
he kept up his devotion to history, and thought seriously of 
trying for an Ancient History Fellowship. 

Charles left Oxford a stronger man than he had come to it. 
His year of hard work for " Greats " had given him a deeper 
sense of a problem, and of the value of evidence, and taught 
him to look for more than one side of a question. He had 
been, too, amongst many men very different in character, and 
understood more of the importance of the individual. He 
became himself less impulsive and reckless of consequences. 
But the same enthusiasm remained, nor had a stronger judg- 
ment weakened his power of throwing himself unstintingly into 
anything he took in hand or dulled his generosity of mind. He 
had loved his Oxford life, loved his friends and loved the place ; 
and in later years his mind turned often to Balliol, and he 
always came back to Oxford with a peculiar pleasure. He 
had won, too, a peculiar position in the memory of those who 
knew him there. It was not only that Charles was unique, a 
wonderful companion through his many interests and his great 
vitality ; but he was the most loyal of friends, and the charm 
which all acknowledged at first had deepened with many into a 
sincere affection. They looked for great things from him ; 
yet knew that to them he would be always the same. 

When the call came in 19 14, Oxford men were not slow to 
answer. Some were already in the Army and went to France 
with the first Expeditionary Force, to fight and often to fall 
in the retreat, on the Marne, and before Ypres ; others, the 
civilians, taking cheerfully to a life they had never contem- 
plated and in many cases loathed, flung up their occupations 
and professions, and after their period of training were scattered 
to France and Flanders, to the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia, 
to Egypt and India. Charles's band of Oxford friends have 
more than taken their part ; they have done good service 
wherever they have been. Julian and Billy Grenfell have fallen 
in France, and Charles himself in Gallipoli. With a group of 

249 



Charles Lister 

Oxford men of different generations he went out to the East and 
joined the Hood Battalion, R.N.D. On the voyage he was the life 
and soul of the party. Like all others, he was filled with the hope 
of wresting Constantinople from the Turks and finally liberating 
the Balkans from Turkish tyranny. He met disappointment, 
hardship, suffering, and danger. Twice hit, he returned again 
to take his place, and at the last was mortally wounded. 
Charles's end was, in fact, a crowning expression of himself — the 
fight for justice and the freeing of the oppressed were again the 
motives of his inspiration, and with the old high-hearted fear- 
lessness of consequences he gave to the Great Cause his mind 
his effort, and his life. 



250 



As both my boys fell on active service, and as both were Etonians, I 
include the " In Memoriam " tributes which appeared in the Eton Chronicle. 
The one about my eldest son was written by his tutor, the Rev. H. T. 
Bowlby. The English verses to Charles were written by the Rev. Cyril 
Alington, the new Head Master of Eton ; the Latin ones by Mr. Ronald 
Knox.— R . 

5n dfeemoilam. 
Captain The Hon. Thomas Lister, D.S.O., ioth Hussars 

was killed at Jidballi, Somaliland Expedition, January 10, 
1904. "Little wars," fought in little-known lands, demand as 
useful lives and a greater measure of self-sacrifice than the 
famous battles of the big campaigns. In the last of these 
little wars, sought out from pure love of a soldier's duties 
and a stirring life, Thomas Lister met his death. He was a 
boy at Miss Evans's in the early 'nineties, where he showed 
something of the bright and fearless disposition which became 
so prominent in a character that developed rapidly on his 
leaving school. After passing through the West York Militia, 
he joined the ioth Hussars in 1897, and rose to be Captain in 
1902, at the early age of twenty-four. He took part in the 
South African War ; and, with the late Lord W. Bentinck, was 
the only officer in his regiment who went through the whole of 
the campaign, being present at the Relief of Kimberley, the 
battle of Paardeberg, and many other engagements throughout 
the Orange Free State, and later the Transvaal. During the 
critical operations in Cape Colony he was for six months 
in command of a squadron, and was one of the youngest 
officers holding such a position in the whole South African 
force. Luckily fever only claimed him for one fortnight, and 

251 



Charles Lister 

a slight wound for another short period of two days. Even- 
tually he was recommended for the V.C. for a gallant action at 
Vaal Krantz ; was twice mentioned in dispatches ; and received 
the medal with six clasps, and the Distinguished Service Order. 

He attended the Coronation with a few picked men of 
his regiment ; but found peace life monotonous ; and on hearing 
of the disaster in Somaliland in the early days of the war, 
volunteered, and was selected out of a long list for special 
service. On landing he was given command of the Remount 
Department ; and to quote the words of a senior officer, 
" grappled with a most difficult and far-reaching business in 
a manner which was absolutely extraordinary for a boy of 
his age, making a brilliant success of what in most hands 
would have been a great failure." 

The news of an impending fight made him impatient of 
inaction, and he obtained leave to join the main force. At 
the battle of Jidballi he acted as orderly officer to Colonel 
Kenna, V.C, who was in command of the mounted troops ; 
and while riding alone with a message after the engagement, 
fell in, as it seems, with an unsuspected knot of fugitives, and 
was shot dead. So ended a career of great promise. His 
death comes sadly as the result of the repeated energy which 
took him unsummoned from home to the war, and from the 
base to the front. But the value of such a spirit is not 
reckoned by terms of service. If he passed early out of sight, 
he learnt early how to live. " For honourable age is not 
that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured 
by number of years." 



252 



To C. A. L. 

To have laughed and talked — wise, witty, fantastic, feckless — 
To have mocked at rules and rulers and learnt to obey, 

To have led your men with a daring adored and reckless, 
To have struck your blow for Freedom, the old straight 
way : 

To have hated the world and lived among those who love it, 

To have thought great thoughts, and lived till you knew 

them true, 

To have loved men more than yourself and have died to 

prove it — 

Yes, Charles, this is to have lived : was there more to do ? 



C. A. A. 



Desipuit sapuitque, dicax, improvidus, audens, 

spreto, quod regeret, recta probare sagax : 
dux sibi nil metuit, comites devinxit amore, 

vi servanda tamen civica jura ratus. 
Intererat, quibus est curae, nee serviit auro : 

magna puer coepit, nee puditura senem : 
non sibi, sed cavisse suis, mors ipsa fatetur. 

Vixerat — haud ultra quod superaret erat. 



253 



INDEX 



Abdul, Sultan, 94-5, 104, 118 

Aden, 61 

Ahmednagar, 66-7 

Akbar, 80-2 

Albania, 83, 96, 101-4 

Alexandria, 179, 193-6 

Alington, Rev. Cyril, 251, 253 

Anderson, "Twiggy," 28 

Annandale Society, 242, 247-8 

Anson, D., 107 

Anzac, 221, 223-4 

Ariosto, 52 

Asquith, A. ("Oc"), 145, 147, 157, 

161, 166, 179, 200, 205, 20S, 210-1, 

218 
Asquith, the Right Hon. H. H., 83, 88, 

1 20-1 
Aston, Brigadier-General, 141 
Athos, Mount, 97-9 
Aurungzeeb, 79, 81-2 
Austria, policy of, 109-10, 125, 170-1, 

181,184 
Aziz Ali, 84-5, 89 

Bailey, Cyril, 43, 244-50 

Balfour, the Right Hon. A. J., 13, 88 

Bartlett, Ashmead, 189 

Bayreuth, 22-3 

Belgium, 114-6, 124, 126, 138-9, 173 

Bell, Gertrude, 92-3 

Benson, Archbishop, 9 

Benson, Guy, 30 

Benson, Reginald, 25, 61, 232 

Berlin, 25-7 

Blennerhasset, Lady, 24-5 

Bombay, 61-4 

Bowlby, Rev. H. T., 232, 234-5, 251 

Breslau, the, 114-5, J 74 

Brindisi, 55-8 

Brooke, Rupert, 17, 153, 156-7, 163-5 

Browne, Denis, 157, 163, 166, 193 

2.54 



Bulgaria and the war, 1 16 
Buxton, Charles, 108-9 
Byapur, 67-8 

Caetani, Leone, 54 

Carducci, 59 

Cawnpore, 75 

Chamba, the Rajah of, 69, 72-4 

Charteris, Cynthia, 26 

Clive, Archer, 123 

Colvin, Sir E., 70 

Constantinople, 83-95, 114-29, 159, 

170-7 
Cornish, Mrs. Warre, 49-50, 190-1, 

231-5 
Cowley Fathers, 240, 242 
Creagh, Captain, 78 
Creagh, General Sir O'M., 78 
Crewe, Lord, 69 
Cromer, Lord, 192 
Curzon, Lord, 70 

Dante, 10, 59, 141-2, 205 
Darrell, James, 5 
Dawson, Colonel, 6 
Delhi, 72-4, 77-82 
Desborough, Lady, 186-8 
Dodge, J., 156-7 
Duncombe, Lady Ulrica, 2 
Dunkirk, 145, 198 
Durazzo, 96 

Elcho, Lord, 26 
Elephanta Caves, 62-3 
Eliot, Sir C, 106 

Enver Pasha, 85, 1 1 8-9, 123, 174-5 
Eton, Charles Lister at, 3, II, 231-5, 
237-40 

Fabianism, 12, 240-1, 245-6 
Fatehpur Sikri, 80-2 
Fay, Maud, 24 



Index 



Fernsemer, Oscar, 26 
Ferrero, G., 28 

France and the war, 115-8, 126, 171 
France, Anatole, 24, 128, 162 
Frazer, Sir J. G., 39 
Freyberg, Colonel, 4, 192, 196, 210-2, 
223, 227-8 

Gallipoli, 166-9, 200-28 

German policy, 44-7, 110-29, I 38~9, 

171-5 

Gibbon, Edward, 7 

Giolitti, 54-5 

Gladstone, W. E., I, 2, 182 

Goeben, the, 1 14-5, 126-8, 172-7 

Goethe, 226 

Goschen, " Bunt," 41 

Gouraud, General, 200 

Graham, Sir R., 5 

Granet, Mrs., 51 

Grenfell, " Billy," 225, 232 

Grenfell, Julian, 22, 24, 70, 72, 136, 

142, 185-8, 195-6, 201, 206, 225, 

232, 239, 242, 244, 249 
Grey, Sir Edward, 138 

Hamilton, General Sir Ian, 4, 148, 

166, 214, 227 
Hamlyn, Mrs., 10S-10, 225 
Hardie, Keir, 123 
Hardinge, Lord and Lady, 75, 78-9 
Heald, Ivan, 227-8 
Horner, Edward, 181, 232 

Imbros, 213-5, 217-8 

Independent Labour Party, 11, 13-4, 

240, 246 
Ireland, 83, 87-8 
Italy and the war, 1 1 5-6, 127-8, 151, 

171, 179-81, 184, 190 

Jagow, Von, 122 
Jehan, Shah, 70, 79-82 
Jerojepore, 74 
Johnson, Dr., 10 
Jowett, Benjamin, 6, 7 

Kaye, Colonel, 70 
Kelly, F. S., 157, 220 
Khalsa College, 70-1 
Kilkitsch, 96, 100 
Kingsley, Mary, 8 



Knox, Rev. Ronald, 155-6, 164-5, 

232, 237-44, 251, 253 
Koritza, 97, 101-2 

Lane, Sir W. Arbuthnot, 32 
Lascelles, Alan Frederick ("Tommy "), 

8, 11, 21-5, 27, 29-33, 39-43, 87, 

136-8, 242 
Lawley, the Hon. Irene, 53, 55-68, 

70-2, 75-7, 79-89> 91-108, 110-9, 

121-4, 126-9, I 3 I ~6, i4i-4> 146-51, 

154-5, 158-9, 160-2, 178-80, 191-2, 

194-5, 205-6, 217-9 
Lemnos, 146-9 

Leslie, Shane and Mrs., 182, 184 
Lewis, Mrs., 222 
Leyden, Graf von, 24-5 
Lindsay, A. D., 244 
Lister, the Hon. Barbara, 6 
Lister, the Hon. Beatrix, 124, 154, 

194, 200, 207, 213 
Lister, the Hon. Martin, 233-4 
Lister, Sir Reginald, 47, 124 
Lister, Captain the Hon. Thomas, 1, 

5, 6, 8, 35, 233, 251-2 
Lloyd, George, 87 
Lou vain, 121 
Lovat, Lord, 14 
Lucknow, 75-6 
Lutyens, E., 60, 72, 78 

McLaren, F., 139 
Mahomet, 183, 217 

Mallet du Pan, Sir Louis, 84, 86-7, 91-2, 
96, 104, 115, 121, 123, 127, 129, 172 
Malta, 142-3, 178-89 
Manitu, the, 161-2 
Manners, John, 129 
Marsh, Edward, 157, 164 
Mascagni, 48 
Mayne, Rev. — , 16-7 
Meredithj George, 191-2 
Methuen, Lord, 181, 185 
Michiels, — , 52, 54 
Monastir, 100-1 
Montagu, E., 69 
Morocco crisis, 44-5 
Mounsey, — , 58-9 
Mundesley, 130-8, 202 
Munich, 21-6 

255 



Index 



Naples, 41, 54, 91 

Nasik, 64-6, 76 

Neilson, Captain, 130 

Nicolson, the Hon. Harold, 30, 85 

Ochrida, Lake, 103 
" Orthodox Club," 245 
O'Shea, Mrs., 182-3 
Ottley, Captain Bruce, 15 
Oxford, Charles Lister at, 240-9 

Paris, General, 141, 212, 215 
Parnell, C. S., 182-3 
Parsons, Alan, 30-1, 232 
Patmos, 158-60 
Pefia, — , 54 
Poona, 67 

Port Said, 60, 150-7 
Presbra, Lake, 10 1 

Rashid, Amir Bim, 93 

Ribblesdale, Lady, 4, 13, 21, 33, 
233-4 

Ribblesdale, Lord, 1-18, 32, 50-5, 
68-70, 72-4, 77-9, 120, 144-5, 
152-3. i59-6o, 162-4, 166-70, 
185-6, 189-90, 192-4, 196-8 

Roberts, Dr., 1 

Rodd, Lady, 41-2, 49, 53 

Rodd, Sir Rennell, 15, 34-8, 41-2 

Rome, Charles Lister at, 15, 34-57 

Rottingdean, 3, 231 

Roumania and the war, 115 

Russian policy, no, 125 

Salonica, 99-100 

Santa Sophia, 85-6 

Sassoon, Philip, 28 

Schiller, F. C, 21 

Scott, Sir Walter, 8-9, 137 

Scyros, 160-5 

Serbians, 100-2, 109-10, 125, 170-1 

Shaw, Bernard, 22 

Shaw-Stewart, Patrick, 142-3, 145, 
147, 153. 161, 163, 166, 193, 199- 
201, 205-6, 210-1, 218, 232, 244 

" Sinister Street," 135 

Shumbi, River, 103 



Smallbones, R. T., 42 

Smith, Goldwin, n 

Smith, Mrs. Graham, 90, 204, 221, 
226 

Snowden, Philip and Mrs., 13 

Socialism, 11-4, 36, 40, 46, 187, 235, 
238-43, 245-7 

Speyer, Edward, 26-7, 29, 44 

Speyer, Ferdinand, 29,44,47-8, 138-9 

Speyer, Mrs., 29, 48 

Stanford, T., his school at Rotting- 
dean, 3, 231 

Starkie, Charles, 2, 145 

Stenia, 101 

Stewart, Colonel, 192, 195-6 

Surtees, 9 

Swinburne, A. C, 6 

Tchukes, 103-4 
Teano, Princess, 50, 179 
Tennant, Sir Charles, 90 
Thackeray, W. M., 9, 190-1, 193 
Therapia, 91, 104-13 
Thomas, Hugh, 105 
Tree, Viola, 46 

Turkish Government, 84-5, 93-6, 
1 14-15, 118-29, I7I-7 

Udaipur, 70 

Vandervelde, Emile, 139 

Wagner, 22-3, 27 

Walker, Rev. J., 21 

Wangenheim, Von, 120-1, 123, 125, 

I7I-3. x 76 
Wellesley, G., 87, 89 
West Ham, Trinity Mission in, 31-2, 

248 
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 40, 122 
Wilson, the Hon. Lady, 119, 130, 

195-7. 199. 202 
Wilson, Sir Mathew, 6, 52, 61, 130, 

169, 195 
Windsor, Ivor, 143, 179 
Wright, Richard, 68-9, 72-4 
Wyndham, Lieut. Percy and Mrs., 49, 

117, 122, 129, 198, 201, 224 



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